© 1984

A RAWBONED WOMAN NEARLY SIX FEET TALL PULLED ON THE BRASS handle; the door was wedged against the lintel and wouldn’t close-the fog that had lain over Philadelphia since late September had swelled the wood. Kicking a duffel bag out of the way, she grasped the knob with both hands and yanked. With a screech the door slammed shut. “Try opening that, Mr. Neff, you little, little man.” She turned the key and the bolt clicked home.

It was a brass key ornate with scrollwork; the initials AMG had been engraved on the lemon-shaped head. The woman ran her thumb over the worn letters. “Amanda Montgomery Grelznik,” she said softly and hurled the key over the porch railing into the fog. She listened for it to hit, but the thick mist swallowed the sound.

“Imogene.” An angular man, all in gray, stood at the gate watching her. His head was bare to the cold and his hands, knotted with arthritis, rested on the pickets of the fence like gnarled winter branches.

“Mr. Utterback!” She picked up her suitcases and came down the steps to meet him. “I didn’t hear you. With the fog I feel both deaf and blind.”

“I see thee are packed. I might have known thee’d be ready.”

“I sent most of my things ahead. The new owners, the Neffs, can have what is left.”

They looked back at the house in silence. It carried its age with dignity; the fine woodwork on the porch had been newly painted in summer and the yard was immaculate. “Mother and Father bought this house in 1842. I was born in that room nine months later to the day.” Imogene pointed to the gabled window above the porch. “Come April, I would have lived here thirty-one years.”