MARGINALIA, 1

Still living alone with two cats, Danby was much as I remembered him. I did not doubt for a moment he would open the door. We caught up a little while he made some tea. He wondered what had brought me back. I gave him some answer about smoothing out all the edges of the story just as my eyes were catching sight of the postcard pinned to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a seashell. It was true. The man in the hotel that night was right. There it was, right in front of me: one of the handmade watercolor postcards he was talking about. There, on Neville Danby's fridge, amongst all the other shotgun splattered memories vying for space and attention amid old shopping lists and a parking fine. Then he offered me some bread. Good, I thought, he's at least baking again. He's a master. But there was nothing from his oven for a good while after what had happened that morning on the train tracks. Neighbors said he simply stopped baking. Just like that. They said the walls around his house suddenly smelled lonely. They were missing the dough magic of a man who could warm your belly like the sun. Poor peeling walls. They must have got plastered when he picked up his pastry brush again.