On the way to Paul’s, she decided to visit the house she had lived in. It had acquired blue sidings. Paul said the present owners, son and daughter-in-law of the woman who had originally leased the house to them, actually lived with their tenants. How odd was that. She walked up the short flight of stairs, rapped using the brass knocker. No one home. She peered into the house through the long glass panels by the door. It looked both the same and different from when she had lived in it. Well, that time was gone.
She walked to the bottom of North Street, crossed it, went over the narrow railway bridge and walked through the grounds of the old people’s home to the grocery shop beyond. At the Liquor Master, she got a bottle of red recommended by the salesman. That would be her contribution to the evening.
Paul opened the door. ‘Tara!’ he said, hugging her, ‘what a long time it’s been!’ Beyond him stood Emily, whom he had met and married after she had gone home, and a dear little boy with brown-blond hair, both smiling. ‘This is Emily, and Jimmy. He’s five.’
‘Hello, Emily, how lovely to meet you at last,’ she said, handing her the bottle of wine. ‘Thanks for having me over.’ Tara bent down and kissed the boy on the head. ‘Hello, Jimmy, did your daddy tell you that we lived in the same house long ago?’ The boy nodded, hid behind his mother.
‘Come in, come in,’ they said. In a second, she was surrounded by all her former housemates: Julia, her other best friend in America, and her husband, Kurt; Sean, the Irish banker–playwright–musician, visiting coincidentally from home; Elke, her German housemate who had married the Greek-American, what was his name, George, who didn’t seem to be there; and the youngest of them all, Linda, who had done theatre while she had done English. A welter of kids was running around with a dog, Max, for company: Jimmy and two other little boys, Eli and Ira, who turned out to be Julia’s sons.
‘It’s good to be back,’ Tara said.
Someone asked, maybe Julia, as the evening unwound with wine and pizza and more wine and stories, ‘So, is there someone special, Tara, back home?’
‘There might be,’ she said. ‘There well might be.’
Later, Paul took her up to their spare room, pointed out of the window. The Boston skyline glinted and glowed in the distance like a strange and exquisite jewel in the night sky. ‘No hotels,’ he said. ‘This will be your view next time you visit.’