Connie Vetsch

…n in the mail; there is a shoebox of cards. On the back step was a casserole, still warm, with no note. I know the dish. It is Connie's. Mom's glasses are on my dresser. Back to school tomorrow. I am told the substitute read them the same book three days running.

…and for once everyone had finished it, Dee included. Helen thought it sentimental. Connie cried describing the ending and had to stop. I think it is a beautifully made thing, a little too pleased with its own sentences. Gus is nine and has begun to take the stairs one at a time. Sunday calls: three for three.

I picked up "When Breath Becomes Air" at Paper Birch on Saturday because Connie had praised it, got thirty pages in, and saw what I was doing. It is on the hall table with the bookmark in it. Not this week. Since Friday R. has rehung the storm door, fixed the latch on the gate again, and sharpened every knife in the…

Jan. 5 - "Our Souls at Night" - Sylvia's Feb. 2 - "H Is for Hawk" - mine March 1 - "My Brilliant Friend" - Jean's April 5 - "Between the World and Me" - Ruth's May 3 - "The Summer Before the War" - Bonnie's June 7 - "My Name Is Lucy Barton" - Dee's August 2 - "LaRose" - Lorraine's Sept. 6 - "The Little Paris Bookshop"…

…ther has moved to Texas. Jan. 3 - "The Underground Railroad" - Nan's Feb. 7 - "News of the World" - Connie's March 7 - "Hillbilly Elegy" - Lorraine's April 4 - "Homegoing" - Ruth's May 2 - "Evicted" - mine June 6 - "The Radium Girls" - Dee's, in the garden August 1 - "Anything Is Possible" - Marlene's Sept. 5 - "Kil…

Jan. 2 - "Pachinko" - Connie's Feb. 6 - "Manhattan Beach" - Marlene's March 6 - "Exit West" - Jean's April 3 - "The Great Alone" - Ruth's May 1 - "Less" - Sylvia's June 5 - "Circe" - Dee's August 7 - "Warlight" - Lorraine's Sept. 4 - "An American Marriage" - mine Oct. 2 - "Beartown" - Helen's Nov. 6 - "Educated" - Nan…

…pretending to be walking the dog. He is to add a minute or two a day. He has made a chart. R. reads every label now. He stood in front of the open refrigerator at noon holding the summer sausage, turned it over, read it, and put it back. I skipped the sorting at the library. Connie came by with a hotdish and stayed…

…reunig joined in April. Jan. 8 - "Where the Crawdads Sing" - Marlene's Feb. 5 - "Becoming" - Connie's March 5 - "The Overstory" - Lorraine's April 2 - "The Library Book" - Ruth's May 7 - "Unsheltered" - mine June 4 - "Normal People" - Dee's August 6 - "Say Nothing" - Nan's Sept. 3 - "City of Girls" - Ellie's Oct. 1…

…potatoes at the kitchen table in an apron, with the radio on. We drove them round this afternoon in packages of six and left them on porches: Marlene, Connie, Lorraine, the Nygaards, Pastor Kristin. I rang and went back to the car. Harlan Nygaard came out onto his step in his slippers and held the package up over hi…

Left on porches, in packages of six: Marlene - Connie - Lorraine and Hal - Harlan and Betty Nygaard - Pastor Kristin - Dee - Ruth - Helen - Inez Rude - LaVonne Thorson - the Fosdals

…screen. Jan. 7 - "Olive, Again" - Nan's Feb. 4 - "The Giver of Stars" - Connie's March 3 - "The Dearly Beloved" - Marlene's April - nothing. May 5 - "Writers & Lovers" - by video June 2 - "The Glass Hotel" - by video August 4 - "The Vanishing Half" - by video Sept. 1 - "Hamnet" - by video Oct. 6 - "Deacon King Kong"…

Jan. 5 - "The Midnight Library" Feb. 2 - "A Long Petal of the Sea" March 2 - "Piranesi" (four of us had no idea what happened and the other five would not say) April 6 - "The Four Winds" May 4 - "Klara and the Sun" June 1 - "Braiding Sweetgrass" - Dee's garden August 3 - "The Personal Librarian" - Nan's Sept. 7 - "Anx…

…8; check in at 5:45 in the morning. From the class on the 18th, the booklet, and Julia on the telephone. THE HOUSE - He sleeps in our own bed; the stairs are allowed. One step at a time, good leg up first, new leg down first. I sleep in Kate's old room for the first weeks. - Rugs: every loose one is rolled up and in…

Jan. 4 - "The Sentence" - Ellie's Feb. 1 - "Oh William!" - Connie's March 1 - "The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek" - Marlene's April 5 - "Small Things Like These" - Ruth's May 3 - "French Braid" - mine June 7 - "Sea of Tranquility" - Dee's August 2 - "Lessons in Chemistry" - Nan's Sept. 6 - "Horse" - Lorraine's (I wa…

…h. The warblers came through the alders last week, and twice I had the telephone in my hand to tell her about the Cape May before I remembered. R. can hear the loons. He was on the dock at dusk the first evening when the pair began to call back and forth across the bay, and he turned his head toward each in turn. I…

…fter. Jan. 3 - "Demon Copperhead" - Marlene's Feb. 7 - "Foster" - Connie's (Lorraine's last meeting) March 7 - "Trust" - Ellie's April 4 - "The Marriage Portrait" - Nan's May 2 - "84, Charing Cross Road" - mine. Lorraine's favourite, ten days after she died. June 6 - "Hello Beautiful" - Dee's August 1 - "I Have Some…

…the left, in my glasses. She says it is time. - Which first? The right; it is worse. March 12. The left on April 9. - What goes in? The plain kind Medicare pays for, and glasses still for my astigmatism; or a "toric" lens that corrects it, $1,150.00 an eye out of my own pocket. I said yes to the toric. - Driving? So…

…March 12 and the left a month after. I stopped driving after dark in November, when the headlights coming at me on the Beltline turned into dandelions. Connie drives me to guild now. There is a lens that corrects the astigmatism as well, at a price, out of pocket, for each eye. I said yes before R. could look at the…

…t like the bottom of a swimming pool, with Dr. Okonjo talking quietly to her nurse about lenses. Connie drove me there and back; R. in a waiting room is no use to anybody. The shield came off this morning. The refrigerator is white. I had thought for some years that it was cream. My own face in the bathroom mirror…

…ens. Twenty minutes. Connie drove me there and back. Drops four times a day and a plastic shield at night for a week.

Jan. 2 - "North Woods" - Margie's Feb. 6 - "The Berry Pickers" - Connie's (I was in Alabama) March 5 - "Absolution" - Marlene's April 2 - "The Women" - Ruth's May 7 - "James" - mine June 4 - "Table for Two" - Dee's August 6 - "Long Island" - Nan's Sept. 3 - "The God of the Woods" - Ellie's Oct. 1 - "Sandwich" - Helen'…

Feb. 4 - "Time of the Child" - Nan's. I shall be in Alabama. March 4 - "The Frozen River" - Connie's April 1 - "Three Days in June" - Ruth's May 6 - "Stone Yard Devotional" - MINE June 3 - "The Correspondent" - Dee's, in the garden The fall to be chosen in June. For May: the folding chairs back from church.

…rsday for five hours with Connie, and my back has opinions. I entered June's baby quilt, borrowed back from Portland for the purpose. It took a third in its class. Pat Hering stood in front of it for some time and then said that the machine work was "very even." The taxes went to Denise on the 7th. R.'s labs are Tu…

Jan. 7 - "Orbital" - Marlene's Feb. 4 - "Time of the Child" - Nan's (I was in Alabama) March 4 - "The Frozen River" - Connie's April 1 - "Three Days in June" - Ruth's May 6 - "Stone Yard Devotional" - mine June 3 - "The Correspondent" - Dee's August 5 - "Wild Dark Shore" - Ellie's Sept. 2 - "So Far Gone" - Margie's Oc…

Jan. 6 - "What We Can Know" - Connie's Feb. 3 - "Flesh" - Marlene's (I was in Alabama) March 3 - "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" - Ellie's (670 pages) April 7 - "My Ántonia" - Ruth's (my suggestion) May 5 - "The Emperor of Gladness" - Margie's June 2 - "Raising Hare" - Dee's August 4 - "The Antidote" - Nan's Sept.…