madrone, and he would have gone for her throat, but she assured him that she rarely blew away her delivery boys, and went to help him unload the rest of her provisions from the
Orca Queen
, then cast off his line from her ramshackle floating dock. As the engine caught in a cloud of blue smoke and he turned for open water, she thought about his words, and it dawned on her, with some amazement, that never once had she envisioned the old wood-handled revolver as a weapon of defense.
Eight
Rae Newborn’s Letter
to Dr. Roberta Hunt
April 6
Dear Dr. Hunter Dr. H
,
I know you will be wondering how your client on the island is holding out coming along, and I wanted to reassure let you know that all is well that I’m doing well that the experience is proving
April 7
Dear Dr. H
,
Well, still alive here on
April 8
Dear Dr. H
,
My boatman comes in two days and
April 10
Dear Roberta
,
You being the good and caring therapist you are, I have no doubt that your mind has followed me north any number of times over the last month, wondering, wondering. Having been here on the island for ten days now, I can say that I believe it will prove in the end to have been the right decision.
I will freely admit that the first few days were hard. Very hard. Partly that was because of coming cold turkey off the meds, and yes I heard voices and yes I saw ghosts out of the corner of my eye. And when Ed De la Torre, the man in charge of bringing my mail and keeping me supplied with bread and propane, first appeared last week he startled me quite badly. Fortunately, he spoke up rather than tapping me on the shoulder or—well, nothing happened, and Ed now knows to give me fair warning.
Actually, you’ll be pleased (I think) to know, the reason I didn’t hear him coming was that I was completely wrapped up in building a piece of furniture. That’s right, although what Gloriana, my New York gallery owner, would make of it I can’t imagine. It is, to put it in its most pedestrian terms, a driftwood-based workbench, but it is actually a far more intriguing medium than I would have imagined possible—the pale driftwood rises up out of the earth (it’s sitting on the open ground under a tree—yes, and just think what Gloriana would say at that! Although come to think of it, MOMA might be pleased at the plein air concept). Anyway, the branches rise up like a thicket of waving arms, intertwined to support each other and the heavy slab of the top. And you know what that top is? The front door of Great-uncle Desmond’s house, which turned up in the ground-clearing process. The door is solid cedar, which explains its longevity, and badly charred and full of nailheads or something on what used to be the inside, but I turned that side down, planed down the good side (removing the door latch first, naturally—this is a workbench, not a work of conceptual art), and it really is a remarkable piece of usable sculpture.
And the very first thing I did with it was to unwrap one of the glasses you gave me and set it on the middle of the bench, full of my first wine on the island. Magnificent. I even took some photographs of it—I’ll ask my granddaughter Petra to develop them and send copies to you, after I’ve finished the roll.
The table took up the better part of a working week, a ridiculous waste of time considering that I’m living in a tent and winter is only six months away, but it served its function, a restorative one you could say, reminding me of who I was before (a person you never knew, but may have glimpsed) and allowing me to focus on what exactly I am doing here, restoring this wreck of a house.
(Do you notice, by the way, that this letter is heavily laced withwhat my old junior high English teacher would disapprovingly call run-on sentences? Think of it as stream-of-consciousness at work, a continuation of our sessions. Better you should think that—bill me, even, for reading this!—than just think what lousy grammar Rae Newborn
Orca Queen
, then cast off his line from her ramshackle floating dock. As the engine caught in a cloud of blue smoke and he turned for open water, she thought about his words, and it dawned on her, with some amazement, that never once had she envisioned the old wood-handled revolver as a weapon of defense.
Eight
Rae Newborn’s Letter
to Dr. Roberta Hunt
April 6
Dear Dr. Hunter Dr. H
,
I know you will be wondering how your client on the island is holding out coming along, and I wanted to reassure let you know that all is well that I’m doing well that the experience is proving
April 7
Dear Dr. H
,
Well, still alive here on
April 8
Dear Dr. H
,
My boatman comes in two days and
April 10
Dear Roberta
,
You being the good and caring therapist you are, I have no doubt that your mind has followed me north any number of times over the last month, wondering, wondering. Having been here on the island for ten days now, I can say that I believe it will prove in the end to have been the right decision.
I will freely admit that the first few days were hard. Very hard. Partly that was because of coming cold turkey off the meds, and yes I heard voices and yes I saw ghosts out of the corner of my eye. And when Ed De la Torre, the man in charge of bringing my mail and keeping me supplied with bread and propane, first appeared last week he startled me quite badly. Fortunately, he spoke up rather than tapping me on the shoulder or—well, nothing happened, and Ed now knows to give me fair warning.
Actually, you’ll be pleased (I think) to know, the reason I didn’t hear him coming was that I was completely wrapped up in building a piece of furniture. That’s right, although what Gloriana, my New York gallery owner, would make of it I can’t imagine. It is, to put it in its most pedestrian terms, a driftwood-based workbench, but it is actually a far more intriguing medium than I would have imagined possible—the pale driftwood rises up out of the earth (it’s sitting on the open ground under a tree—yes, and just think what Gloriana would say at that! Although come to think of it, MOMA might be pleased at the plein air concept). Anyway, the branches rise up like a thicket of waving arms, intertwined to support each other and the heavy slab of the top. And you know what that top is? The front door of Great-uncle Desmond’s house, which turned up in the ground-clearing process. The door is solid cedar, which explains its longevity, and badly charred and full of nailheads or something on what used to be the inside, but I turned that side down, planed down the good side (removing the door latch first, naturally—this is a workbench, not a work of conceptual art), and it really is a remarkable piece of usable sculpture.
And the very first thing I did with it was to unwrap one of the glasses you gave me and set it on the middle of the bench, full of my first wine on the island. Magnificent. I even took some photographs of it—I’ll ask my granddaughter Petra to develop them and send copies to you, after I’ve finished the roll.
The table took up the better part of a working week, a ridiculous waste of time considering that I’m living in a tent and winter is only six months away, but it served its function, a restorative one you could say, reminding me of who I was before (a person you never knew, but may have glimpsed) and allowing me to focus on what exactly I am doing here, restoring this wreck of a house.
(Do you notice, by the way, that this letter is heavily laced withwhat my old junior high English teacher would disapprovingly call run-on sentences? Think of it as stream-of-consciousness at work, a continuation of our sessions. Better you should think that—bill me, even, for reading this!—than just think what lousy grammar Rae Newborn
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