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Fir st Light By Mike Gaddis S With him, she was free, as for all the years of her life, a part of her had hungered to be. She did not like what she saw. Had not for a long time. An old woman . . . old, pale, wrinkled, crow- footed and gray, so lean and spent now that the once taut and supple skin at her neck purled loosely and he turned away from the mirror, rested her chin in her hand, and gazed vacantly beyond the window. Thinking back across time. Almost a half-hour passed before she turned to face her reflection again. pouted, like a stitch pulled too-tight, and her breasts no longer dimpled her gown, but dangled limp and empty, like withering fruit on a hoary, old tree. Much like the tree, she acceded . . . her time mostly gone. Though still she held her health and was yet able to do mostever she wanted. What she must find now was the courage and the will. Picking up the faded silver brush again, she slowly pulled it through her long, matching hair . . . counting as she went . . . seventy-six . . . seventy-seven . . . toward the one hundred strokes she had made each morning since she was a child, contemplating with each long sweep the turn of the seasons that had brought her here. The one that had come finally and taken him away. So that now there was no longer even the slender hope, just the impassive, featureless face of eternity. He had loved it long, her hair, and she had left it that way, all the years, though it was troublesome some time – like he was – so that when it was she pulled it into a bun, with never a thought of SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 23 LADY IN WAITING BY JOHN SEEREY-LESTER