ability to work, but he hadn’t fully recovered yet, and he loved being with Eleanor and Camille all the time now that he had survived the war. His job at the bank had been dreary and he’d hated it for years before he had left. He wasn’t looking forward to going back, and his options were limited in a wheelchair although there were many men like him returning from the war who were seeking employment, and many veterans were begging on the streets.
They told Louise when she got home from the hospital, and she insisted she didn’t want to be a burden to them, but she liked the idea of their staying too. She said she was comfortable in the cottage, and urged them to stay in the larger house as they had done that summer. The decision was made. They were staying. Eleanor sent a long apologetic letter to Miss Benson, and asked for permission to take a year off, to attend to her convalescing mother and husband. And her response a week later was warm and kind and she agreed to give Eleanor a year’s sabbatical for compassionate reasons. It would have been hard not to, and particularly since Eleanor had been a faithful employee of the school for fourteen years.
In September, Eleanor went back to San Francisco to give up their apartment. Because it wasn’t accessible for Alex, they couldn’t use it. She was sad to let it go. They had been happy there and she liked their neighbors, but another chapter had ended. She sent their furniture to Tahoe to add to what was in the barn, since she had borrowed it from her mother originally. And on a warm Indian summer day, she left their Chinatown apartment for the last time. She walked to where she had parked the car, past all the open markets and the familiar sights and sounds of the neighborhood. She sensed that another door had closed silently behind her, and once again, the future and the mysteries it held were unknown.
Chapter 11
Louise seemed to get some of her strength back in the fall, after her heart attack, and she started spending a lot of time in her garden. It was part of the healing process for her and she said it was good for her soul. She had taken refuge and great comfort in her gardening when they first moved to Tahoe as well.
Eleanor and Alex kept a watchful eye on Louise, and as the winter set in, the colder weather and heavy snows, Louise spent most of her time in her cozy cottage and slept a lot. Without Charles to take care of and fuss over, she seemed to be losing interest in life, and Eleanor was worried about her, and glad they had decided to stay in Tahoe with her.
In contrast, Alex had recovered and was fully engaged with whatever was done on the property. He had his energy back. The only difference was he couldn’t walk now. But there was very little he couldn’t do. His back had been somewhat damaged in the explosion too, so he couldn’t stand well enough to wear prostheses, but he got around everywhere in his wheelchair once the paths were cleared of snow, and he loved being with his family. Eleanor knew they had made the right decision to stay in Tahoe. She and Alex had time together, Camille flourished from having her parents close at hand, and Eleanor could keep an eye on her mother. It was harder and harder to coax her from her cottage. By January, after a quiet Christmas, their first without Eleanor’s father, Louise seldom left her cottage for meals now. She was content to stay tucked up with a book, and spent more time asleep than awake.
Eleanor went to check on her one morning when she hadn’t heard from her yet, and was shocked but not entirely surprised by what she found when she entered the cottage. Her mother had had another heart attack sometime in the night, and hadn’t survived it. The doctors said afterward that she must have died instantly. It saddened Eleanor to have lost both her parents so young, but the traumas they had weathered almost fifteen years earlier had eroded their spirits and their health, and without Charles, Louise had lost her will to live. Even her daughter and her grandchild weren’t enough to stem the tides. She had slipped away quietly and had no desire to live without