“Okay with you, Steve?” she asked.
“Sure.”
The spring was small, and it flowed in gentle curves through a glade of trees. It was no more than a short walk from the house, but Carl’s pace was slow and halting, so it was almost twenty minutes later when we reached the shady embankment Amelia had already designated for the picnic.
By that time it was early afternoon, the sun still high and very bright in a cloudless blue. Amelia and Marie spread a large checkered cloth over the grass and began to take the various sandwich meats and breads out of the basket. Peter opened the folding chairs and after a while we were all seated comfortably by the water.
“It’s pretty here, don’t you think?” Amelia asked, though to no one in particular.
Marie nodded, her eyes on me. “Dad and I used to fish in this little stream.”
Carl chuckled. “You never caught anything though, did you, Marie?”
Marie shook her head. “How could I? All I had was that little plastic pole, remember? The one you bought at the dime store downtown?”
“He bought you that for Christmas one year,” Amelia added, “and you had to wait several months for the ice to break before you could use it.” She glanced at Carl. “I told you it would drive her crazy giving her a thing like that in the winter, a thing she couldn’t play with right away.”
Carl laughed again as he glanced toward Marie. “It did just about drive you crazy, too,” he said. “We went fishing the first day the ice broke up.” He shivered. “It was cold as hell.”
In my mind, I could see them by the little spring, the winter thaw barely a few days old, a snowy border on both sides of the stream, the trees bare and creaking in the frozen breeze as they dipped their hooks into the icy, Ashless water.
“You really kept at it, though,” Carl said to Marie admiringly. “We must have stayed out here a couple hours. You just wouldn’t go back in.” He looked at Amelia. “How old was she that year, Amy?”
“Six,” Amelia answered, almost wistfully. “She was six years old.”
I looked over at Peter, remembered him at six years old, a little boy with reddish cheeks and gleaming eyes. It was the year I’d taken him to the state fair in Danbury, taken pictures of him as he was led about on a small, spotted pony, fed him hot dogs and cotton candy until he’d finally puked behind a huge green circus tent.
I laughed suddenly at the thought of it.
Marie looked at me, a smile playing on her lips. “What are you laughing about, Steve?”
“I was just remembering the first time we took Peter to the Danbury Fair.”
I could see the whole day playing through Marie’s memory, sweet, almost delectable, even down to the last unsavory moment. “He threw up,” she said, “behind this big tent.”
Peter grimaced. “I did?”
Carl waved his hand. “Everybody throws up,” he said. He leaned back in his chair and lifted his face upward slightly, as if trying to get some sun.
“Careful there, hon,” Amelia warned. “Don’t tip back too far.”
Carl waved his hand as he leaned back a bit farther. “A man’s got to take a risk, right, Steve?” he said as he pressed himself back farther, Amelia watching him steadily, growing tense until he bolted forward suddenly and caught her eyes in his.
“Scared you, didn’t I?” he joked.
Amelia’s face relaxed. “He’s always trying to get at me,” she said, her eyes now on me. She began a story about some other occasion when Carl had “gotten her,” as she put it, then followed with another.
While she spoke, I felt my mind drift away, drift along the shaded stream, as if skating lightly across the glassy surface of the water. I could hear Amelia’s voice, as well as the laughter of the others as she continued with her tale. I heard names and places, dates, weather reports, ages. I could even feel the overall warmth of the moment we were all sharing, its calmness, pleasure, and serenity.
And yet, I could also feel myself moving away from it, down the softly winding stream, its twin banks gliding smoothly along either side, as if I were being carried on a small canoe. Overhead, I could see the flow of the trees as they passed above me, flowing like another stream, this one suspended surreally above my head. Slowly, almost without my realizing it, the stream became a sleek blue road, winding through a maze of suburban streets, neat lines of houses flowing past on both sides, until, in the distance, I could see the mock Tudor house at 417 McDonald Drive. It was silent, and not at all threatening, and as I continued to drift toward it in my mind, I could feel a grave attraction for it, an excitement at drawing near it, as if it were a place of assignation.
A burst of laughter brought me back, loud and wrenching as a sudden gunshot. I blinked quickly and stared around me. Everyone was laughing—Marie, Peter, Carl. Everyone but Amelia, who, as I noticed, was staring directly toward me with steady, evaluating eyes.
“Where were you, Steve?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She didn’t seem to believe me. Her eyes remained very still, her face framed by the swirling circular maelstrom of her old straw hat. “Just in some other world, I guess,” she said, in a strangely cool and brooding voice.
I nodded, but added nothing else.
Amelia returned her attention to the others. Carl was telling some story about Marie as a little girl, and a few feet away Peter was listening very attentively, as if surprised by the fact that his mother had ever been a child.
I listened attentively too, though from time to time my eye would return to the spring, follow a leaf as it flowed through the dappled shade until it disappeared around the nearest bend.
