Theo of Golden: A Novel by Allen Levi - 42

October arrived, and with it, a welcome drop in temperatures.

Consistently cool days were still weeks away, but Theo had begun wearing sweaters on a regular basis.

The days shortened. Reduced hours of daylight were more than compensated for by the arrival of autumn color. The oaks of the Promenade and trees throughout the city put on an arboreal display that, while not quite New England, was striking, especially along the Oxbow at morning and evening.

By early November, “quitting time” and sunset were becoming almost simultaneous for most people who worked downtown, especially after clocks “fell back” for the American habit of daylight savings time.

Shorter days meant that evening bestowals were less and less practical. Additionally, tolerance levels among Goldenites for cool air and dampness seemed extremely low.

And so, Theo decided it was time to curtail the bestowals until warmer weather returned. He would resume when the azaleas bloomed.

By then, he had given portraits to forty-three people. It was a satisfying thought.

If a ledger of the world’s gladness is maintained somewhere, he was confident it had been credited with a considerable deposit from all those meetings at the Fedder.

Forty-three handwritten letters.

At least forty-three hours of conversation .

Forty-three acquaintances and a handful of ongoing friendships.

There was no self-congratulation in his reminiscence; instead, only gratitude that he was allowed to be an instrument in the process.

He imagined forty-three homes that now displayed the artwork of Asher Glissen.

He did a quick mental inventory and recalled Leah the waitress (whose husband was in the Army overseas and whose daughter, a ten-year-old, played soccer), Taquon the sheriff’s deputy (who arrived at his bestowal in uniform), Hardy the old-school barber (who smelled of talcum powder and wondered if it would be vain to hang the portrait in his shop), and Miller P. the lawyer (who told Theo twice that he was sure he’d seen him somewhere before).

And, of course, Cleave Torber (whose desecration still brought a shudder to the old man).

One recipient, who had to be out of town, sent a proxy. Another, Lindsey, arrived with four children in tow.

One, who had only “a couple of minutes,” never sat down. Then he stood and talked for an hour and a half.

There had only been three no-shows.

Theo retained their portraits, thinking that, perhaps, he would reach out to their owners again someday.

Or mail them.

With no return address.

Theo had maintained a record of all the bestowals, with notes about each recipient, in the same small journal where he listed the names of plants, trees, and birds that he was encountering for the first time in Golden.

At almost every meeting, in response to Theo’s simple question — “Could you tell me a bit about yourself?” — recipients told story upon story. Colorful and mundane, tragic and euphoric, articulate and rambling; they ran the gamut.

All forty-three recipients had been told they were capable of saintliness. All had been given a description of what Theo “saw” when he studied their faces in the frame. Almost all were, or seemed to be, grateful for his generosity and equally grateful that someone wanted to hear their story. Many, maybe most, even after his explanation, were befuddled by his kindness to them.

In hindsight, it seemed miraculous to Theo that so many showed up at the Fedder.

If not for the season and the weather, he would gladly have carried on. But now, at least for a while, it was time for a rest.