The Keepers of the House

by Shirley Ann Grau

The house was empty and lonely before—I just did not realize it—it’s no worse now. I know that I shall hurt as much as I have been hurt. I shall destroy as much as I have lost.

It’s a way to live, you know. It’s a way to keep your heart ticking under the sheltering arches of your ribs. And that’s enough for now.

Our children grow up, he thought, echoing something he had heard long ago and had not remembered for the years since. “Our children grow old and elbow us into the grave.”

At least, he thought, the ground was solid. The sandy ground you knew so well you got to thinking of it as a person. Tricky, hard, not particularly agreeable. But the same, still the same, for you, for your father, for your children. And that helped. That was a comfort.