Dust Catchers Nancy Huddleston Packer (bio) If she didn't really wake up, she could perhaps go back into her dream. Ivan had looked so handsome in his officer's uniform—pinks they called them. They were driving along Point Reyes in his little Studebaker Champion. The sky was cloudless, the ocean glistening, the whitecaps rising and falling. "Look," he said, pointing at an immense whale cavorting offshore. And then he was shouting angrily and banging his fist on the steering wheel. Jean opened her eyes. The sun was already streaming through the western windows. Though she had only meant to rest a moment, she must have been asleep on the sofa for hours. Usually people just went away when she didn't come to the door, but this one kept on shouting and knocking until Jean was afraid the glass pane might crack. Perhaps it was important—the house on fire or a message from Carolee or Andrew. She sat up on the edge of the sofa and waited for the throbbing in her head to subside and her eyes to focus. Then, holding on to the chair, the highboy, the wall, she began to walk toward the front door. As she passed the hall mirror she caught a glimpse of herself. She was still in her nightgown and her old tattered plaid robe. What a sight, she thought, patting down her tangled hair and scraping her thumbnail over the crusts of spit on her chin. She really should freshen up, but there it was again, someone shouting and knocking. On the other side of the glass door was a very large woman with copper-colored hair and a big moon face. Perhaps one of the Jehovah's Witnesses—they sometimes came by—simple, goodhearted women, cheerfully resigned to rebuff. Ivan had once let in a very tall bony young black woman and a very fat old white woman, and for five minutes they had spoken to him about the state of his soul, and he had pretended to be remorseful and eager to be saved. Finally he had tired of the game and told them he couldn't give his soul to God because he had already sold it to the devil for a dollar and fifty cents. The poor things had scurried [End Page 18] away, red-faced but still smiling. Jean had said nothing—it would only have made him angry. "I admire what you're doing," she said through the glass panel, "but I don't discuss religion with anybody." "What? Religion? You think I'm trying to convert you or something? That's a good one." As the woman laughed her cheeks ballooned and her little eyes almost disappeared and her tongue bobbed up and down. When her laughter subsided, she leaned close to the glass. "You don't recognize me, do you? Lived in the Tudor down the street?" She pronounced it two-door, like a car, and it took Jean a moment to realize she meant the house with the crossbeams in the next block. The house was dilapidated for the neighborhood, a rental with a constant stream of families passing through. Jean didn't remember ever knowing anyone who lived there, but then her memory wasn't what it used to be, and she wouldn't be rude to an old neighbor. She slid back the dead bolt. As the woman stepped over the doorsill, her face grew solemn. "I just heard the awful news about your hubby, and I come right over." She engulfed Jean in her immense flabby arms and swayed wordlessly for a minute. She smelled of talcum powder and stale sweat. Jean's stomach kicked and bile rose into her mouth. Feeling the way she did, she should never have answered the door. She didn't want to see anyone, not until she got herself together. Her neighbors and the people from her church seemed to understand that and no longer came by. "I know exactly what you're feeling," the woman went on, "because I lost my Warren last year." With a deep sigh of reluctance, she released Jean. "Cancer of the bowel. I won't...