ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 324: In Virginia My sister Jude, in Virginia along with my brother John to help our sister Tish through her first week without David, calls me. “I’m so glad to hear your voice,” I say. “How are you?” “It’s been an Open House all week long. A…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 323: Time, Talk, Tears I reach for a pencil. Pencils are my most valuable tool just now — far more important to me than fork or spoon. I must write. It releases the fire. It spews the lava. It guides my thoughts, exposes my feelings, takes me…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 322: A Summing Up My Al-Anon friends say I’m too hard on myself, yet I’m the only one who knows how Ernie and I were with each other. Even Joshua doesn’t know. What he saw was a kind of act we put on for him, as we…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 321: Life as Change In her book The Amateur, An Independent Life of Letters, Wendy Lesser writes of meeting the aging ballerina Tamara Toumanova, who began the study of ballet in Paris at age five. Six years later she was discovered by Balanchine. The ballerina tells Wendy…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 320: Ernie in a Tux Perhaps in anticipation of ending this writing and needing something to read, I reserve a dozen books at the library, and they all came in yesterday. Two are by Wendy Lesser, founding editor of The Threepenny Review. In her book Nothing Remains…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 319: Regret Today, the fifth of December, my brother-in-law David planned to fly back to his home in Virginia from his worksite for a delayed Thanksgiving celebration with his wife, my sister Tish. Instead, his body is flying in, and he’s not with it. Just a few…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 318: The Essentials Relationships are the key to peace and joy, I think, beginning with the relationship with myself. Pick Sixes and Best Sellers might have made me happy for a while, but that kind of happiness — based on an external thing — has a short…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 317: Maybe a Visit I check the Greyhound bus schedule. I can leave here on a 9:40 a.m. bus and get to my sister Tish’s house in Virginia 25 hours later. I can do this, I tell myself. I can travel that long. A round-trip ticket costs…

ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching Book Two, Chapter 316: A Wealth of Years I leave a message for Josh, asking him to call me. He’s in Lexington visiting Jodi, who has four days off. His return call comes in late. “We just finished a game of Monopoly. Now we’re going to play Clue. Jodi has…