Company's coming, and

I'm in my usual snit, frantic to make the house spic and span.

Why is it I can go for weeks

and never notice the cobwebs' sticky gray tissues on the stairway windows?

The dropped ficus leaves on the tile. Dull woodwork in need of a swipe

of furniture polish. Spots on the carpet and overflowing recyclables.

Until now. Until I begin to

see my house through Jack's eyes. She's never been here, of course, but

suddenly I see my careless housekeeping through her eyes.

She's coming Monday.

We were close friends, roommates,

actually, at Gettysburg College. I was playing the piano in the student

union one evening, and a bunch of kids gathered to sing Christmas carols.

Suddenly, behind me, one voice stood out in the pure clarity of a lark.

I couldn't turn to see where it was coming from, but afterward, when I

asked a friend who it was, I met Jackie Jury.

She was a waif-like beauty

with a wistfulness about her, and smooth jet-black hair betraying her

American Indian heritage. Cherokee, I think.

We became close friends, this

exquisite songbird and I. She was a member of the college choir, and as

I recall she also earned spending money singing for events and in night

clubs. When she needed an accompanist, I was honored to work with her.

I took care of her during a

serious bout with flu, and the first thing she mentioned when we were

reunited after 30 years absence was that the milk-toast I fixed her had

saved her life. It wasn't quite that dramatic, but hey, if she wants to

call me a lifesaver, why should I object?

Jack had been on track to enter

the deaconate, a sort of Lutheran sisterhood back in those days, but fell

for a pre-ministerial student. They married while Chuck was still in seminary.

I'll never forget visiting them in a rented farmhouse on the Gettysburg

battlefield.

Above the kitchen stove, plaster

covered a huge bulge in the wall. The story was that a cannonball was

lodged therein, and it was considered safer not to move it. Never occurred

to me to doubt it then, but do you really think it was safe just inches

above a gas stove?

In 1956, Jack sang "Ich

liebe dich" and "The Lord's Prayer" for our wedding. Chuck

was one of Dave's groomsmen.

They took a parish in South

Jersey not far from where we lived while Dave helped start up a new plant.

Their two children were born about the time ours came along, but eventually

they took a call farther away and we lost touch. It was harder to stay

connected in those days before e-mail.

But I heard that the marriage

unraveled while Chuck was the Lutheran chaplain at Brown University in

the turbulent '60s.

Then about 10 years ago, I

saw her name ­ Jury, again ­ in a church magazine. She was back

at Gettysburg. She and Martin Sheen, I believe it was, were engaged in

a Catholic ministry to migrant workers in Adams County's overflowing apple

orchards. Could it really be my Jackie?

I called information in southern

Pennsylvania, and got a number, and in two syllables ­ "Hello?"

­ I knew I had found her.

"Jack! It's Sallie."

"I would have known it

was you without your telling me," she exclaimed. "You're the

only person in the entire world who calls me 'Jack.'"

She lives near her daughter

in South Jersey, and is now enthralled with the mysticism of the Orthodox

church. When we are up in the Northeast, we make it a point to see her.

What a shock, the first time:

Her raven hair is pure white. A lifetime of pouring herself out for others

has left her with few resources for herself ­ financially, emotionally

and physically. It didn't help that she contracted Lyme disease, and has

suffered severe depression in recent years. Depression is treatable, but

she wouldn't stay with it.

We saw her last Thanksgiving,

and she was so sad, I despaired of her ever knowing happiness again. When

we parted, I reissued my usual invitation to come spend some time with

us. But I was sure she wouldn't.

Then just after New Year's,

I was stunned to get a phone call.

"I'm coming to see you.

I'm going down to Charlie's [her son, with NASA] and I want to stop and

visit for a few days."

"Jack, you sound ­

different."

"I am. I'm happy again.

This new doctor gave me some medicine and I feel great. No, really, it

was seeing you and Dave at Thanksgiving," and her laughter was music.

Oh dear. Her tiny, simple apartment

is like a monastic cell; our house, modest by Peachtree City standards,

suddenly seems ostentatious.

How will she see my materialistic

world?

Cobwebs and unruly kitchen

cabinets are the least of my worries now.

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