A novella in 21 chapters
The Plot: Chapter 21
In Memoriam
Leah
It was a sparkling Saturday in late spring. One of those November days when the world seemed ripe with possibility and fresh adventure.
A moderate crowd stood in a semicircle around the Big Tree, where a dais had been erected, with a lectern and microphone. The venerable walnut tree had been reduced in grandeur by the loss of a few over-heavy limbs to the tree surgeon’s careful saw, but she was in fresh green leaf and looking as sprightly as anyone had a right to, at the age of one hundred and fifty-three.
At the lectern stood Professor Bettina Crisp and at her side a smartly dressed woman in her forties, nut-brown hair immaculately coiffed. They regarded the audience of gardeners, family members and general hangers-on.
A few journalists hovered in the wings. Well-known local sports personality Neil MacColl had been sentenced to fifteen years for his killing of the guest speaker’s husband only the month before, so there was media interest in what would otherwise have been a low-profile function.
Leah noted some familiar faces. There was that sweet, fussy Indian couple from across the road, the Patels. There was Jorja and that crusty old fellow, Vince. They seemed to have formed an…
