Florence Chigwell leaves Curtis

Florence Chigwell leaves Curtis and chooses to live alone, turning a long-delayed wish for independence into a concrete change of home and daily life. Her decision is also a quiet acknowledgment of V. I. Warshawski’s influence: Florence credits V. I. with showing her that a woman can live independently.

The News and Its Timing

Around the time the Cubs were moving north from Tempe, V. I. received a postcard from Florence urging her not to wait until she was seventy-nine to see it. Florence returned home a few weeks later and called. The postcard’s brief message precedes the fuller news of her changed circumstances, though the reference to what V. I. should see is not explained in this scene.

A Home Reordered

Florence tells V. I. that she is no longer living with Curtis. She has bought his share of the house, while Curtis has gone to a retirement home in Clarendon Hills. The account gives no further details about how the separation was arranged; its emphasis falls instead on Florence’s decision and her experience of living alone. Asked how she likes it, she answers that she likes it very much.

Independence and Its Cost

Florence wishes she had made this choice sixty years earlier, but says she lacked the courage then. She tells V. I. that watching her live independently made the possibility visible. The recognition briefly unsettles V. I., who responds with an incoherent protest; Florence hangs up, and V. I. smiles at her gruffness, hoping to be as tough forty years later. The call makes Florence’s departure more than a change of residence: it marks a belated claim to a life she now says she enjoys, and gives V. I. an unexpected measure of the example she has set.