1 Youngish for Her Age PEGGY’S STORY I was 120 years old last birthday Which is a good age in some places though it’s not so much around here But it’s no time of life to be looking after teenagers I can tell you that I’ve got two of them Not that they’re mine not exactly Indirectly though I guess They’re somehow related great-grands or great-great-grands or several times removed or I don’t know what But anyhow I got saddled with them That’s the thing about relatives they can always track you down At least they can when they want something They’re not so hot on you tracking them down when you want something They’re better at avoiding you then I’ve been farming this middle-of-nowhere rock for at least sixty years My closest neighbor is over the way on the next island He’s near enough to shout at and far enough away to ignore if I feel like it Which I do Frequently And the feeling’s mutual 1
sky run But essentially if there was a place called Nowhere then this would be the middle of it It’s not called the Outlying Settlements for nothing We’re so far off the Main Drift that we don’t get visitors from one turning to the next except perhaps for the occasional Cloud Hunter Sometimes I buy water from them sometimes I don’t I’ve got my own condenser here but it’s old and not so reliable Those Cloud Hunters and one or two of my neighbors from across the way are the only people I see around here And the locals are the same as me mostly old and crotchety Though it’s fine here as long as you’ve got your health and teeth But as soon as that goes well you’re gone with it My immediate neighbor old Ben Harley over there he’s not so much crotchety as cantankerous But I know he’s looking out for me same as I’m looking out for him if only to have the pleasure of burying him first Other than that I don’t get many callers I was married once but he died and I decided not to try it twice I had three children but they went off into the world and I moved here I staked a claim on this piece of rock and no one contested it probably because no one else wanted it and I’ve been here ever since I’ve outlived everyone now my daughters and my son It’s a strange thing to outlive your children It feels all topsy-turvy and the wrong unnatural way around You even feel you’ve done them an injustice somehow and you should have had the decency to predecease them 2
