“I tried to leave yesterday.”
“I know.” Karen held a slice of bread in her hand and watched it brown slowly and fragrantly. “That’s why I blocked the windows a little more than usual. They aren’t that way today.”
“You trust me?” Lea asked, feeling the secret slop of terror in the balanced cup.
“This isn’t jail! Yesterday you were still clinging to the skirts of death. Today you can smile. Yesterday I put the lye up on the top shelf. Today you can read the label for yourself.”
“Maybe I’m illiterate,” Lea said somberly. Then she pushed her cup back. “I’d like to go outside today, if it’s okay. It’s been a long time since I looked at the world.”
“Don’t go too far. Most of the going around here is climbing-or lifting. We haven’t many Outside-type trails. Only don’t go beyond the schoolhouse. Right now we’d rather you didn’t-the flat beyond-” She smiled softly. “Anyway there’s lots of other places to go.”
“Maybe I’ll see some of the children,” Lea said. “Davy or Lizbeth or Kiah.”
Karen laughed. “It isn’t very likely-not under the circumstances, and ‘the children’ would be vastly insulted if they heard you. They’ve grown up-at least they think they have. My story was years ago, Lea.”
“Years ago! I thought it just happened!”
“Oh, my golly, no! What made you think-?”
“You remembered so completely! Such little things. And the way Jemmy looked at Valancy and Valancy at him-“
“The People have their special memory. And Jemmy was only looking love at Valancy. Love doesn’t die-“
“Love doesn’t-” Lea’s mouth twisted. “Come, then, let us define love-” She stood up briskly. “I do want to walk a little-” She hesitated. “And maybe wade a little? In real wet water, free-running-“
“Why, sure,” Karen said. “The creek is running. Wade to your heart’s content. Lunch will be here for you and I’ll be back by supper. We’ll go to the school together for Peter’s installment.”
Lea came upon the pool, her bare feet bruised, her skirt hem dabbled with creek water, and her stomach empty of the lunch she had forgotten.
The pool was wide and quiet. Water murmured into it at one end and chuckled out at the other. In between the surface was like a mirror. A yellow leaf fell slowly from a cottonwood tree and touched so gently down on the water that the resultant rings ran as fine as wire out to the sandy edge. Lea sighed, gathered up her skirts and stepped cautiously into the pool. The clean cold bite of the water caught her breath, but she waded deeper. The water crept up to her knees and over them. She stood under the cottonwood tree, waiting, waiting so quietly that the water closed smoothly around her legs and she could feel its flow only in the tiny crumblings of sand under her feet. She stood there until another leaf fell, brushed her cheek, slipped down her shoulder and curved over her crumpled blouse, catching briefly in the gathered-up folds of her skirt before it turned a leisurely circle on the surface of the shining water.
Lea stared down at the leaf and the silver shadow behind it that was herself, then lifted her face to the towering canyon walls around her. She hugged her elbows tightly to her sides and thought, “I am becoming an entity again. I have form and proportion. I have boundaries and limits. I should be able to learn how to manage a finite being. The burden of being a nothing in infinite nothingness was too much-too much-“
A restless stirring that could turn to panic swung Lea around and she started for shore. As she clambered up the bank, hands encumbered by her skirt, she slipped and, flailing wildly for balance, fell backward into the pool with a resounding splat. Dripping and gasping she scrambled wetly to a sitting position, her shoulders barely out of the water. She blinked the water out of her eyes and saw the man.
He had one foot in the water, poised in the act of starting toward her. He was laughing. She spluttered indignantly, and the water sloshed up almost to her chin.
“I might have drowned!” she cried, feeling very silly and very wet.
“If you go on sitting there you can drown yet!” he called.
“‘High water comes in October.’”
“At the rate you’re helping me out,” she answered. “I’ll make it! I can’t get up without getting my head all wet.”
“But you’re already wet all over,” he laughed, wading toward her.
“That was accidental,” she sputtered. “It’s different, doing it on purpose!”
“Female logic!” He grabbed her hands and hoisted her to her feet, pushed her to shore and shoved her up the bank.
Lea looked up into his smiling face and, smiling back, started to thank him. Suddenly his face twisted all out of focus-and retreated a thousand miles away. Faintly, faintly from afar, she heard his voice and her own gasping breath. Woodenly she turned away and started to grope away from him. She felt him catch her hand, and as she tugged away from him she felt all her being waver and dissolve and nothingness roll in, darker and darker.
“Karen!” she cried. “Karen! Karen!” And she lost herself.
“I won’t go.” She turned fretfully away from Karen’s proffered hand. The bed was soft.
“Oh, yes, you will,” Karen said. “You’ll love Peter’s installment. And Bethie! You must hear about Bethie.”
“Oh, Karen, please don’t make me try any more,” Lea pleaded.
“I can’t bear the slipping back after-after-” She shook her head” mutely.
“You haven’t even started to try yet,” Karen said, coolly.
“You’ve got to go tonight. It’s lesson two for you, so you’ll be ready to go on.”
“My clothes,” Lea groped for an excuse. “They must be a mess.”
“They are,” Karen said, undisturbed. “You’re about Lizbeth’s size. I brought you plenty. Choose.”
