Julia's Delta Retreat
Since I was twenty-five, by which time Iād been away from home for almost ten years, Iāve fantasized about building a house, a retreat of sorts, in or near my hometown in the Mississippi Delta. I hadnāt realized how long Iād actually had this particular dream until a few weeks ago when I found a love letter from the man I almost married that brought me to my knees. In it, he envisioned the place that even then he knew Iād always wanted, and that he had wanted for both of us. āCould you hang orchids from the veranda like you do in Malaysia, and grow mangoes in the garden?ā he wrote. We would have a Vietnamese cook who would do miraculous things to catfish; weād gaze out at the Mississippi in reclining wicker chairs āhaving some sort of long drinkā or maybe āa fine old Armagnac.ā