Oh, is it? Beverly glanced at the clock on the wall. The door opened and the secretary who had worked in the outer office for more than twenty years looked in. Only after he had gone into larger buildings, had she drawn only for her own entertainment. She also had studied architecture, and often from her desk at home had drawn the plans for the houses he built. He had never isolated her from the business. She had always worked with him from her space at home. Instead of closing his office, she had decided to come and do her best. She turned away from the window and returned to the map on the wall. Clark would have liked the chippies, she thought.īut there was work to do. They had eaten lunch there occasionally, watching the squirrels and birds. Sometimes she felt he was there, in the office garden, sitting on the swing, waiting for her to come out. The bird feeder was a place where not only birds came but squirrels too, and lately, a couple of little striped chippies. The fountain had been a continual source of comfort for both her and Clark. She stood at the window of the office that had been Clark’s and looked out onto the private little garden that she herself had planted and decorated over twenty years ago. But slowly he deteriorated, and finally he gave up.Īt the age of fifty-five he died, and Beverly had become a widow at the same age. They had sent him to the best of schools, and Clark had lived to see Mel become an attorney.Ĭlark continued to work. They had taken Mel to church regularly to give him a religious background, although neither of them was particularly religious. They had married young, and reared their one child, a son, together in the most traditional of ways.

In those days, before her husband’s death, she came down to the office only when she was meeting him for lunch, or wanted to talk to him or just see him. Until three years ago the name on the door had read Clark Inness. Every time she saw it, a cloud of loneliness marred her day for a few minutes, then she made herself get to work. The name on her office door read Beverly Boyd Inness.

Baby Dolly by Ruby Jean Jensen