Dear Cyndy,

The bookshelves should have been sanded and painted, 
but when I installed them, I neglected cosmetics. Too
much of a hurry; too much to do.

I laud your courage for contemplating 12 more years in
the vale of tears. I'm a coward. I keep telling myself,
the longer I live, the more likely the wish that I had
died. The longer I live, the more likely I am to be 
incapacitated, unable to pursue my presumptuous projects. 
I'd settle for a quiet ending any day, if only Margaret 
were taken care of. It's she, quite literally, who keeps 
me going, keeps me alive.

You're correct about the folly of shuttling back and forth
to Virginia. Simple economics would dictate staying in one
place. But nothing is ever simple - at least in my existence,
The patients, even if there weren't many of them, did need to
be seen; the connections, tenuous as they are, with the
grandchildren, require periodic confirmation, and I needed
to check that everything was well with Klemens, who never
complains. Besides, there was every reason to expect the
Appeals Court to have roused itself from protracted silence
and sentenced me to a summer and autumn of hard labor on
Nantucket.

As soon as this letter is dispatched, I'll start putting my
desks in order, then setting up the bedroom for the woman -
Sandy Greene is her name - who will be driving back with us
and helping me drive, in effect making possible the 850 mile
trip in a continuous 17 hour marathon. Sandy is the one who
drove Margrit and her little sports car to Detroit on December 9,
and Sandy will be in Belmont presumably for only one night,
preliminary to driving that same car back to Virginia, -
where I've promised it to Jeane Walls. Jeane was at one time
seduced and charmed by my parents' charisma to an extent that
she was willing to move into their house to nurse them in the
last three years of their lives, - and Jeane is now similarly
seduced and charmed by Margrit's exhibitionistic affectation
at age 81, of driving down sunny country lanes in a convertible
Mazda Miata, with the top down, her curly dyed hair fluttering
in the summer breezes. Secretly she envies Margrit and wants
to be like her. But who am I to criticize? I'm nothing more
than the scrivener who writes it all down.

Best to you and Ned.

Jochen