Spencerville

"Hard to separate the two."

"True."

They entered the house through a battered wooden screen door, and Keith found himself in a barely furnished living room, lit only by the setting sun. From what he could make out, the furniture was sort of minimalist European modern, and it probably came in boxes with instructions badly translated from Swedish.

Gail threw the umbrella in a corner, and they passed through the dining room, which had the same sort of furniture, and into the big kitchen, a blend of original country kitchen and 1950s updates. Keith put the wine on the counter, and Gail took the bottles out of the bag. "Oh, apple wine and spiked grape juice! I love it!"

"Kind of a joke. But there's a good Chianti, too. Remember Julio's, the little Italian place near campus?"

"How could I forget? Bad spaghetti before it was called pasta, checkered tablecloths, and melted candles stuck in straw-covered Chianti bottles — what happened to the straw?"

"Good question."

She put the apple and grape wine in the refrigerator and gave Keith a corkscrew to open the Chianti. She found two wineglasses, and he poured. They touched glasses, and she toasted, "To Bowling Green."

"Cheers."

She said, "Jeffrey is out back, gathering herbs."

Keith saw a big pot simmering on the stove, and the kitchen table was set for three, with a loaf of dark bread in a basket.

Gail asked, "Did you bring meat for yourself?"

"No, but I looked for roadkill on the way here."

She laughed. "Disgusting."

He asked her, "Do you like it here?"

She shrugged. "It's all right. Quiet. Plenty of empty farmhouses at rents we can afford. And Jeffrey's people are still here, and he's been doing his memory-lane thing for the last two years. I come from Fort Recovery, so it's not much different. How about you? You okay here?"

"So far."

"Nostalgic? Sad? Bored? Happy?"

"All of the above. I have to sort it out."

Gail filled their glasses again and poured one for Jeffrey. "Come on outside. I want to show you our gardens."

They walked out the back door, and Gail called out, "Company!"

About fifty yards away in a garden, Keith saw Jeffrey stand up and wave. He came toward them wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt, carrying a wicker basket piled with vegetation that Keith hoped was weeds destined for the garbage can and not something he was supposed to eat.

Jeffrey wiped his hand on his shorts and extended it to Keith.

"Good to see you."

Keith asked, "You made it home all right?"

"Sure." He took his glass of wine from Gail and said, "I'm becoming a juicehead in my old age. We only do grass on special occasions."

Gail added, "We put on oldies, turn out the lights, get naked, get high, and fuck."

Keith didn't comment but looked around the yard. "Good gardens." Jeffrey replied, "Yeah, we've got use of four acres and all the corn we can steal from the fields. Thank God this guy grows sweet corn, or we'd be eating cattle feed."

Keith looked out over the acres of gardens. This was more kitchen garden than the average farmer kept, and he figured that the Porters depended on this for much of their food. He stopped feeling sorry for himself with his adequate government pension and his family-owned acres.

Jeffrey said, "Come on, we'll show you around."

They toured the garden plots. There was a plot devoted entirely to root vegetables, another with vine vegetables such as tomatoes and squash, and another garden was planted with more varieties of beans than Keith knew existed. The most interesting thing was the herb gardens, the likes of which were rarely seen in Spencer County. There was a culinary herb garden with over forty different varieties, and also what Jeffrey called "a garden of historical and medicinal herbs," plus a garden of herbs used for dyes and miscellaneous household needs such as soap and cologne. And beyond the gardens, stretching out to where the cornfield began, was a profusion of wildflowers that had no use at all except to please the eye and ease the mind. "Very nice," Keith said.

Gail said, "I make perfume, potpourri, tea, hand lotion, bath scents, that sort of thing."

"Anything to smoke?"

Jeffrey laughed. "God, I wish we could. Can't risk it here."

Gail said, "I think we could, but Jeffrey is chicken."

Jeffrey defended himself. "The county sheriff is a little brighter than the Spencerville police chief, and he's keeping an eye on us. He thinks all this stuff is psychedelic."

Gail said, "Oh, Jeffrey, you have to treat the fuzz the way you grow mushrooms — keep them in the dark and feed them shit."

They all laughed.

Jeffrey said, apropos of the subject, "I have a source in Antioch. I make a run about once a month." He added, "I just made a run." He winked at Keith.

It was almost dark now, and they went inside. Gail put the herbs in a colander and washed them while Jeffrey stirred the contents of the pot, which looked like stew sans meat. Gail poured some of the Chianti into the pot and added the herbs. "Let that simmer awhile."