Florence Chigwell

Florence Chigwell’s late-life separation from Curtis Chigwell turns independence from an example she has observed into a life she chooses for herself. After buying his share of their house and moving on alone, she tells V. I. Warshawski that she wishes she had found the courage to do so sixty years earlier, making her decision both a release and a measure of how long that freedom had been deferred.

A Message and a Return

As the baseball season begins, Florence sends V. I. Warshawski a postcard bearing the brief admonition, “Don’t wait until you’re seventy-nine to see it.” The message, written in her distinctive spidery hand, precedes her return home by several weeks; once back, she calls Warshawski. The postcard’s unidentified “it” remains unspecified, but its urging anticipates Florence’s own direct announcement of change.

Leaving Curtis

Florence tells Warshawski that she is no longer living with Curtis. She has bought his share of the house from him, while he has gone to a retirement home in Clarendon Hills. The concrete arrangement matters: Florence is not merely expressing dissatisfaction or imagining another life, but has secured a separate household and begun living alone. Asked how she likes it, she answers that she likes it very much.

Courage and Influence

Her satisfaction is shadowed by regret. Florence says she wishes she had made this choice sixty years earlier, but lacked the courage at the time. She credits Warshawski with making the later choice possible: by showing her how a woman can live independently, Warshawski offered a model Florence could finally act upon. Florence’s account gives their connection a particular force—the example was not an abstract argument but something that altered what she believed her own life could hold.

A Gruff Farewell

After explaining why she called, Florence hangs up while Warshawski is still protesting incoherently. Warshawski smiles at the abrupt ending, recognizing Florence as gruff to the end, and hopes to possess comparable toughness forty years later. Florence’s exit from the scene thus carries both humor and weight: she does not wait for approval or prolong the explanation, but leaves the call—and her former domestic arrangement—on her own terms.