A Map of Glass Read Online Free PDF Page B

hissed in her mind all week long, first as an idea, then as a possibility, and, finally, now as a certain destination.
    After washing and dressing she went into the spare room, removed the suitcase from the cupboard, and carried it with her down the unlit back stairs and into the kitchen where she placed it on the table. On a desk facing the large kitchen window was the tactile map she had been making for her friend Julia, its rhinestones, tinsel, and bits of folded aluminum foil glistening under the single lamp she lit. Placed carefully beside it were the several diagrams and drawings she had made of the location Julia next wanted to visit: an abandoned lighthouse on a seldom-used road at the very tip of the County. She glanced at the map, then looked through the window into the yard, which was partially illuminated by the kitchen lamp. It was the middle of a cold April and only recently had the thaw begun in earnest. At this moment everything beyond the kitchen windows appeared to be weeping; droplets were clinging to her clothesline and shining on branches, and icicles that had disengaged themselves from the eaves were embedded like spears in the remaining heavy snow near the foundations of this house in which she had lived all her life. This is the anniversary of sorrow, she thought – everything moist, transitory, draining away, everything disappearing.
    Her friend Julia, who had also lived all her life in one house, said that she could smell the beginnings of the spring melt on her farm long before those who were sighted were aware of its arrival. She could also smell the approach of storms on cloudless summer days and the presence of deer hidden deep in the cedar bush behind the barn. How she admired this in Julia, this sensory prescience; that and the calm that always filled her corner of the room like a soft light.
    It was Julia who had sensed her grief, Julia who had suggested that she make the journey to the city. In the year since the newspaper article had appeared, she had mentioned it to her friend only twice, her voice as neutral as milk, the need to state the terrible fact of it perfectly disguised. The first time, Julia simply shook her head as she often did when presented with sad news items concerning strangers. The next time, however, in the midst of the retelling, Julia had suddenly straightened in her chair and had moved her hand across the space between them. “There’s something here, Sylvia,” she had said. “Something deep and private and important. I think you should meet this young man.”
    Sylvia had said nothing more, but in the silence that followed Julia’s statement the idea of taking her story to the city had been planted.
    She opened her suitcase again and placed the map, the sketches, two rectangular plastic containers – one filled with an assortment of threads, textured papers, and several ordinance survey maps, the other with string, twine, sequins, and rhinestones – into the interior. Then, once again, she quietly closed the lid, using her thumbs to ease the fasteners into place. She would take the materials with her and continue to work on the map. In this way she would keep the connection to Julia.
    As she put on her outer clothing she wondered if she should leave a note and decided, finally, that she would. She took a pen from her purse and wrote the sentence
I have engagement
on the back of a grocery bill. The question that came into her mind at this point was one of placement. Where did people leave such messages: near the phone, under a magnet on the refrigerator, on the hall table? The kitchen, she concluded, would be no place to leave such a scrap of paper, to leave such a formal declaration, and so, after lifting the salt shaker from the table and dropping it into one of her pockets, she moved down the hall and went into her husband’s study, his library. Selecting two volumes that dealt with medical syndromes, she placed one on top of the other in the center of the