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That Lottie had a doorstep was only because her boss, having bought a second house, offered Lottie his first house at a price so low and terms so reasonable that it would have been like losing money to refuse.
She shut off the rooms she didn't use, letting them go to ruin. Since she ate her meals out, she had no food at home, and did not encourage callers, who always expected a cup of tea.
Her way of life was mean and miserly, but she did not know it. She thought she lived frugally in her middle years so that she could live in comfort when she most needed peace of mind.
The years, after forty, began to race. Suddenly Lottie was sixty, and made to retire by her boss's son, who had no sentimental feeling about keeping her on until she was ready to quit.
She made several attempts to find other employment, but nobody would hire her. For the first time in her life Lottie would gladly have worked for nothing, to have some place to go, something to do with her day.
Harry died abroad, in a third-rate hotel, with Bess weeping as hard as if he had left her a fortune. He had left nothing but his horn. There wasn't even money for her passage home.
Lottie, trapped by the blood tie, knew she would have to send Bess money to bring her home.
It took Lottie a week to get a bedroom ready, a week of hard work and hard cash. There was everything to do, everything to replace or paint. When she was through the room looked so fresh and new that Lottie felt she deserved it more than Bess.
She would let Bess have her room, but the mattress was so lumpy, the carpet so worn, the curtains so threadbare that Lottie's conscience bothered her. She knew she would have to redo that room, too, and went about doing it eagerly.
When she was through upstairs, she was shocked to see how dismal downstairs looked by comparison. She tried to ignore it, but with nowhere to go to escape it, the contrast grew more intolerable.
She worked her way from kitchen to parlor, persuading herself she was only improving the rooms to give herself something to do. At night she slept like a child after a long and happy day of playing house. She was having more fun than she had ever had in her life. She was living each hour for itself.
There was only a day now before Bess would arrive. Passing her gleaming mirrors, at first with vague awareness, then with painful clarity, Lottie saw herself as others saw her, and could not stand the sight.
She went on a spending spree from the specialty shops to beauty salon, emerging transformed into a woman who believed in miracles.
She was in the kitchen cooking a turkey when Bess rang the bell. Her heart raced, and she wondered if the heat from the oven was responsible.
She went to the door, and Bess stood before her. Stiffly she suffered Bess's embrace, her heart racing harder, her eyes suddenly smarting from the onrush of cold air.
"Oh, Lottie, it's good to see you," Bess said, but saying nothing about Lottie's splendid appearance. Upstairs Bess, putting down her shabby suitcase, said, "I'll sleep like a rock tonight," without a word of praise for her lovely room. At the lavish table, top-heavy with turkey, Bess said, "I'll take light and dark both," with no marveling at the size of the bird, or that there was turkey for two elderly women, one of them too poor to buy her own bread.
With the glow of good food in her stomach, Bess began to tell stories. They were rich with places and people, most of them lowly, all of them magnificent.
Her face reflected the joys and sorrows of her remembering, and above all, the love she lived by that enhanced the poorest place, the humblest person.
Then it was that Lottie knew why Bess had made no mention of her finery, or the shining room, or the twelve-pound turkey. She had not even seen them.
Tomorrow she would see the room as it really looked, and Lottie as she really looked, and the warmed-over turkey in its second-day glory. Tonight she saw only what she had come seeking, a place in her sister's home and heart.
She said, "That's enough about me. How have the years used you?"
"It was me who didn't use them," said Lottie with regret. "I saved for them. I forgot the best of them would go without my ever spending a day or a dollar enjoying them. That's my life story, a life never lived. Now it's too near the end to try."
Bess said, "To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live. Don't count the years that are left us. At our time of life it's the days that count. You've too much catching up to do to waste a minute of a waking hour feeling sorry for yourself." Lottie grinned, a real wide open grin, "Well, to tell the truth I felt sorry for you. Maybe if I had any sense I'd feel sorry for myself, after all. I know I'm too old to kick up my heels, but I'm going to let you show me how. If I land on my head, I guess it won't matter. I feel giddy already, and I like it."
