Michael Malone - Weebly

after dark. Pauline Moffat. He hadn't thought of her in
years, and yet when she'd told him that she was going
to marry Cecil Hedgerow he'd felt physically ill. He
wasn't sure he could remember what she looked like,
and yet seven years ago when Otto Scaper had sat up
all night drinking because he hadn't been able to keep
Pauline Moffat Hedgerow alive, Ransom had gone next
door to sit up all night with him. He'd gone to mourn the
loss of a person he'd already lost years, years earlier,
and to mourn the person he himself might have become
in a life with her, though he had no sense at all of what
that theoretical Ernest Ransom might have been like.
There were leaves floating in the pool water now;
he scooped them into the net. This afternoon he ought
to drop by Smalter's to buy some film for Kate's party.
It had been a while since he'd gotten any pictures of his
three girls—as he called his wife and daughters when he
showed people their portraits in his office or screened
the home movies in which Priss, Emerald, and Kate,
with the baby, Ray, skied or sailed or stood impatiently
in front of natural wonders and historic relics. On film
they silently mouthed, "Oh, Daddy, that's enough," and,