That loose flutter of sadness. Never have they done this. Arguments over inviting another couple over for dinner, sure, or if it was time to fold and call a plumber, of course. But nothing that spoke to the core of them. To the core of if they work.
Green branches whip along one side of the car. Nothing is over, she tells herself, though it feels that something has indeed ended. Maybe just the glow of a new relationship. At best, that’s it. She tries to not think, to just take in the world around her. Flares of dark red in the grass. Poppies. Growing in clumps, cupping the sunlight. Then a wide stretch of aspens, an ancient orchard. Bees rise from short white wildflowers in the grass. These rocks, she tells herself, long-gone shepherds once sat on these rocks. Again there is that pull, that connection, an anchoring to the earth, to the simple essence of their lives. And sadness. Because with the end of each distracting thought, she is right back to this: never has she felt this far apart from him.
Out of the car, people file to Delan. Embracing him, hands flurried with talk. Hollywood, they call him, and the name makes him blush. She looks away, unable to take his smile, his bashfulness, without feeling a desperate sorrow within her. A regret that they went where they did, despite how inevitable the direction might have been. Around her, the women are in traditional dresses, each an explosion of color and sparkling layers, sleeves long and flowing and tied loosely behind backs, and so quietly Olivia loads film into her camera and fires off a few shots, drawn to the shimmer—but ultimately she’s just going through the motions. None of the shots has feeling.
Then there’s a hand on her pants leg.
“Hi-lo,” Lailan says, peering up at her with the sun hard in her eyes. She blinks twice and then seems used to it, defiant of its brightness. On the opposite hill, a shepherd watches with his flock. “Will you to please take my picture?”
Olivia smiles. “Of course. How about there, at the rock?”
Huge chunks of white marble, Delan had told Olivia on the plane, already so long ago. The ruffled edges of Lailan’s long green pants have collected bits of sticks and leaves and gather more as they walk. When at the rock, Olivia sees the veins of gray in what is indeed marble, and the truth of his statement lands like an argument in his favor.
Telling the girl to stay where she is, Olivia steps off for a bit of distance and instructs Lailan to smile when she says cheese.
“Cheese?” Lailan repeats, and it’s the funniest thing she’s heard. “Cheese?” she says again. “Rice! Bread!” she yells out, cracking herself up as she lists off all the English words she knows for food—every word but cheese. Olivia’s drawn in to the girl’s rebellion, laughing as she fires off almost a dozen shots. But then there is the fight with Delan, shoving its way back into her mind. He’s watching her from the path a ways up, and the simple fact that he’s waiting for them breaks something within her. Joining him, she can’t meet his eyes.
And then there are tulips. Folded, waffling leaves and red petals that rise to a point. Some of the flowers are missing sections as if nibbled on or windbeaten, and as she stops to frame another shot, trying to capture a plant that sneaks from a crack in white marble, she sees Lailan has stopped as well and is now posing and smiling in case she’s the subject. A better photo, by far. Lifting her camera, Olivia gets the shot of the girl, just as she notices that all around her, people are stooping over a certain plant, then pulling it up and placing it in baskets. Like a thistle with spiked edges.
“Kinger,” Delan says. “Good in spring. We eat the bottom of the stem, right above the roots. Fried with egg.”
But then Lailan has found her way to the path and is demanding their attention. Hand out, she orders them not to walk. The cause for concern is a caterpillar, reddish brown and tan, its fur like mink, body gathering and extending. Olivia explains what it is to the girl, the impending transformation, as the people behind them peer over shoulders for a glimpse and then veer past, unimpressed.
“Where it goes?” Lailan asks, scanning the plants as if looking for a small house.
“Leave it,” Delan says. “It’ll go where it needs to.”
Now Lailan’s face opens in shock, right before it narrows in anger. “Leave in walk. How you leave? How?”
She wants an answer. It’s not rhetorical. She’s waiting, and Olivia can’t help but get caught up. “She’s right, Delan. How could you leave it here?” She adds a smile, but he glances at her as if he senses the inclusion of their earlier fight.
“I’m outnumbered, I see. Okay. If I were a caterpillar,” he says and surveys the plants, “I’d want that one, there. With the fuzzy leaves.”
“Borage,” Olivia says. Purple-blue flowers bent at their necks. Little downcast stars.
Gently, Lailan scoops the caterpillar in her hand and then kneels with her palm held beside a leaf. A waiting game now. The caterpillar is in no hurry. With her other hand, Lailan pets it gently, whispering something Olivia can’t hear.
“You have a big heart,” Olivia tells her when she’s done, then explains the saying. “It’s good to have a big heart. To allow yourself to be open and to feel things.”
Ahead of them, Delan
