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strong light. He was reading
Democratic Vistas
by Walt Whitman, a work I knew was political rather than poetical. Doc truly
was
a medical doctor, who had earned his degree partly with the help of the GI Bill. But in his retirement he had taken up poetry and prose reading with a vengeance, and at ninety-plus could hold an abstruse conversation with anyone, including Pish, one of his favorite people. Pish had been a financial wizard before his semiretirement, but he shared with Doc an appreciation of American poetry.
    I watched for a moment, love for the old dude welling up in me. He is the closest I will ever get to knowing my great-uncle Melvyn Wynter, who left me Wynter Castle. Doc and my uncle were childhood friends and enlisted in the army after Pearl Harbor, served with honor, and came back from WWII together. He felt like the grandfather I’d never had.
    Something must have caught his attention, because he turned slightly, his thick glasses sliding down his nose, and saw me. His expression gladdened; there is no better way to say it. He grinned, gappy teeth exposed. I knew why I had come back, and why Autumn Vale had wormed its way into my reluctant heart: it was love, pure and simple. Love for the people, for my family history, which I was just learning about, and for individuals like Doc English.
    He tossed the book aside and struggled to his feet, holding his arms open; even as I walked toward him I noticed with concern a bandage around his foot.
    â€œMerry, honey, I thought you were gone for good,” he said in my ear as we hugged. “And so did Pish, lemme tell ya. He visited me two, three times a week, faithful as a beagle, and told me he was afraid you’d sell up and marry that Spanishcreep.” His hearing wasn’t that good, so he talked loudly. Some of the others in the living room eyed us with curiosity.
    â€œI thought about it, Doc,” I joked, even as I felt a pang in my heart that Pish had hidden that fear from me. “Easy life; I didn’t have to move a muscle. I was in danger of turning into one giant plate of paella!”
    He patted my hips. “You look good. Feel good, too.” He paused and eyed me, his smudgy glasses askew on his beaky nose. “Or maybe you’re back just to collect your things.”
    I smiled. The men in my life seemed worried about my intentions. “I’m back for good, Doc.” I put my arms around him and squeezed again, then released. “For
good
, for good.”
    He stared at me. “You mean you’ve finally decided you ain’t going to sell the castle?”
    â€œI’ll find some way to keep it. I’m staying.” It was a momentous proclamation, but somehow, some way, I would keep Wynter Castle.
    We sat and talked for a while. He had a sore on his foot that, because of his type 2 diabetes, wasn’t healing. But he was doing fine, otherwise. He told me more unvarnished truth in a half hour than anyone else would in two days.
    Emerald had moved into a house with Crystal Rouse. Doc called Consciousness Calling “that pack of mumbo jumbo crap.” I expressed my concern for Lizzie in the midst of it all. Lizzie, he told me, was still volunteering at Golden Acres, which she had begun doing as community service after a run-in with the law, and kept doing because it suited her.
    â€œWhat do you think of Roma Toscano, the diva Pish invited to stay?”
    He chuckled. “Pish brought her to meet me. I kinda like her. She adds a little color to the neighborhood, a little vivacity. She flirts with me.
And
every other man in sight. But I kinda feel sorry for Pish; he creeps around visiting folks Roma’s upset so he can placate ’em. Puttin’ out fires she’s started with her tongue. I told him, stop worrying about it somuch. People get too cranked over stupid stuff, then that’s their problem, not his.”
    Hmm . . . so everything wasn’t so shiny happy in