When Bob took me home to meet his parents, I could see it immediately. The girl who married Bob didn’t just get his family; she got life at Diamond Lake. If she were suffering from any ambivalence—which I was not—this would be the final feature and benefit to confirm the sale. The incredible loveliness of it was impossible not to see and want. Bob parents had friends up and down the road. Everybody stopped in. They played cards and ate dinner and took walks with a remarkable assortment of neighbors. In Indianapolis my parents had friends all over town, but not so much in the neighborhood. The appeal of the extended Diamond Lake neighborhood was compelling. I loved the road they lived on.
Then there was Kate. Kate was the woman next door to Bob’s parents. Her family had been in the house almost as long as Bob’s family had been in theirs. At first she lived there with her sons and her husband, and the commotion they caused provided endless dinner table conversations. But within a few years, the boys were gone and so was the husband. Kate was over there by herself. But Kate didn’t stay by herself. She came over to DuCombs all the time. She ranted. She exclaimed. She swore. She often arrived more undressed than dressed. She left me speechless. Jim took her in with his indifferent good humor, but Lucy welcomed her. She fixed coffee for her. She made breakfast for her. Lucy responded to Kate’s tirades as if they were real conversation. I couldn’t believe her audacity. And Lucy, I wondered? What was she thinking? Kate was crazy and ill-mannered and Lucy just invited her in.
I watched the two women for many years. Lucy was self conscious modesty, even at 55. Kate was flagrant immodesty. Lucy was tea with lemon. Kate was vodka with rocks. Lucy read romantic adventures. Kate read Chaucer and the plays of Christopher Marlowe. Lucy knew all the local news in both South Bend and Cassopolis. Kate was global. I couldn’t see the attraction. I couldn’t see how Lucy could stand her. The agitation she caused confused me.
Both women were fabulous gardeners and greens keepers. It was a competition to see whose lilacs bloomed fullest; whose daffodils came first; whose peonies smelled richest; who had the fewest dandelions. After over 50 years of living next door to each other, I am sure it was a tie at the end. Both women loved smoking, and from them I learned what a powerful ally an addiction to tobacco is in a friendship. Still, it unsettled me. What could they possibly talk about? What did they have in common to support such loyalty and tolerance?
Finally, I asked Lucy about it. “How can you be such friends with her? You don’t really have anything in common.” She just looked at me. Lucy was not one for telling her lessons. She just lived, and you could draw your own conclusions. “She is my next door neighbor, Jane. This is my home. You have to love the people that you live with or you cannot live with them.” I felt ashamed. I should have seen it.
When Jim died Lucy sold her house and moved into South Bend. It was too lonely and cold and the lake was changing. Kate left soon after. She moved to New Mexico. But in those last years before she left, she went back to Notre Dame for a Ph.D. in medieval literature. I wish I had known her better. I think we had so much in common.
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