Living in the Present Moment — The Blue Castle

Summer passes while the Stirling clan, with the insignificant exception of Cousin Georgiana, agrees to treat Valancy as one dead. She and Barney still clatter through Deerwood and out to the Port in their unspeakable car, bareheaded and unashamed. When they buy groceries at Uncle Benjamin's store a third time, he calls Barney a scoundrel who lured away a weak minded girl. Barney coolly answers that he made her happy while her friends made her miserable. Uncle Benjamin stares: he has never thought women ought to be made happy at all.

Valancy lives in a world without Mrs. Grundy, traditions, or in laws, where time feels suspended and every day opens a new room. She visits Georgiana, who gives her an elaborate candlewick spread and sighs over her life up back; Valancy laughs that she is gloriously out of the world. At the Blue Castle she loves the oriel window facing west, the real stone fireplace, Tom MacMurray's stuffed owls, and the fat clock that ticks without hurrying. Banjo and Good Luck become obsessions. Barney cuts her hair in a scandalous bob that gives her face meaning; her skin clears and she fills out at last.

Her heart bothers her little until one night without medicine brings a bad attack and a keen reminder that death may pounce any moment. She will not let herself remember that most of the time.