Free Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

She was a fighter, a hell-raiser, a bargain shopper, a doughnut baker, and a dream maker who put a ten-by-ten pool in her twelve-by-twelve backyard, the neighbors be damned. The first time she met me, she warned me away from the Menz family, pronouncing “Menz” in such a way as to raise many shadows of many doubts. When she saw that I was determined to stay in the clan, Mary took me in and held me close. I became an honorary sister, and when she died, I lost another sister. The boys lost another aunt.
    Just days later, a popular teacher from the middle school died. Then a local family lost their dad in a car accident. During the summer, our cat Milo disappeared while we were on vacation; in September, our other cat was hit by a car and died. The boys cried when we buried Coco in the backyard. The tears of my children seemed inexhaustible, and I was helpless against them.
    I remember that fall going out for a walk alone while the boys were at school. As I walked through the winding streets that surround my house, I slipped into a fantasy of imagining. I imagined what it would be like to walk back home again and find Anne-Marie there, waiting for me. I could actually feel the relief and the joy spilling through me as I imagined coming across the lawn and seeing her, wrapped up in a warm coat, her long, skinny legs coming out from underneath and her blond head shining in the sun. I smiled as I imagined her saying, “No, it didn’t all happen, my body is here still, look, I am here.” I hug her so hard, and we cry and laugh and look at each other. We look the same, me and my sister, no aging and no wear.
    In my imagining, we go into the house, where I show her the books I’ve been reading and we wait for the kids to come home from school. “Oh, they are going to be so happy,” I say as we wait. The cats are there too, alive, and purring and rubbing against our legs. They understand Anne-Marie has come back as they have come back: to return us all to the old days. Anne-Marie sits at the table, chin in her hands, elbows on the table, looking almost bored. I know that pose so well. She is not bored, but she is off in another place, thinking. The kids come home, and we are all happy.
    Weeks pass, and we get used to having Anne-Marie back. Time passes on in my imagining. I take Anne-Marie for granted again, and it is wonderful. Because to take someone for granted is a luxury; to have her and not think about losing her or never seeing her again, that is a gift. But I came home from my walk and Anne-Marie was not there. I have lost, and even worse, my kids have lost, the innocence of believing no one they love will ever go away.
    In Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Nicholas meets the Baron of Grogzwig, who recounts memories of happiness and fun, but then says, “Alas! The high and palmy days had taken boots to themselves, and were already walking off.” I could not let our palmy days walk away on the boots of death and leave us. I had to bring back joy enough to reignite belief in my children that the world is not about death and that living is not about waiting to die.
    And that is why I was here, in my kitchen with a pile of waiting books on the counter, and more books waiting on a shelf in the next room, and with George before me, asking me to read one of his favorites. I sent him up to bed, promising again that I would read Watership Down . “Along with three hundred and sixty-four other books,” I added.
    Two nights later I found myself downstairs at midnight, the only one in the house still awake, with that day’s book just finished and now closed in my lap. I had read Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark , and I scribbled into its margins, for posting later, “This book is perfect, a genuine communication from the heart.” I sighed and leaned back against my old purple chair. I was getting used to this late-night reading. So much for the six hours between school