Stone Junction

‘Probably with reason,’ Daniel agreed.

Jenny said evenly, ‘I have a feeling it might be a secret, but I’d like to know what’s in your pouch.’

‘I can’t tell you. If I did, it could put you in danger for no reason.’

‘I appreciate your regard,’ Jenny said, ‘but we’re always in fatal danger. Life couldn’t be great without it.’

With all the directness he could muster, Daniel said, ‘Jenny, I love you.’

‘Ohhh.’ Jenny half giggled, half moaned. ‘You sweet-talking boy. But love us, too, Daniel, what we are together.’

They were silent for seventy miles until Jenny, already braking, smiled and arched her brow. ‘Again?’

Daniel sighed. ‘Jenny, I have to tell you that in my past, my sexual past – which hasn’t been extensive – I’ve never been able to have an orgasm with the same woman twice.’

Jenny, pulling off the road, said, ‘You can’t cross the same river twice.’

‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Daniel said.

‘I change. You change. Change changes. Why be afraid it won’t stay the same? It’s not supposed to. Even if you have to be crazy to appreciate how great that is.’

‘A woman named Charmaine said I loved myself more than those women.’

Jenny opened her door and stepped out naked. The warm rain had turned to a misty drizzle. She reached into the back for the folded comforter. ‘Come on, sailor,’ she said to Daniel, a playful sultriness in her tone. ‘Let’s cross the river. I’ll bet you love against fifty thousand dollars we can cross that mighty water again, me and you, together.’

Love won going away. Far away.

So far away that Daniel realized he was in danger. When they floated back to the Porsche, Daniel hefted the pouch. The Diamond had almost quadrupled its weight without changing size.

They drove the next forty miles in silence. Daniel leaned back, trying to imagine what was happening with the Diamond. He was afraid to look, afraid to ask Jenny to pull over so he could take it out on the flats for a private glance. He sensed what he’d see: the Diamond preparing to open. Quickly, with a joy-shredding certainty, Daniel’s choice was becoming a decision between Jenny and the Diamond.

The mind, Daniel remembered, is neither either nor or.

The mind is a box canyon.

Daniel squeezed Jenny’s bare shoulder. She turned at his touch, smiling questioningly. Daniel pointed to the side of the road.

‘Again?’ she said, delight overwhelming her attempt at mock incredulity.

‘I want to marry you,’ Daniel said. ‘Here and now.’

Jenny was already pulling over.

As they coasted to a stop, Daniel said, ‘You bring the bridal suite, I’ll get the ring.’

They walked out naked in the sage desert, the folded comforter under Jenny’s arm, the possibles sack slung over Daniel’s shoulder, free arms around each other’s waists, until they found a clearing in the brush. The mist that eddied in the moonlight was brighter now that the rain clouds had dissolved. Jenny spread the damp silk comforter in the clearing, smoothing it out with her hands. The lightning-bolt scar at the base of her spine gleamed in the moonlight. Daniel knelt behind her and kissed her scar, startled and aroused by its heat on his lips.

Jenny turned to face him, her eyes burning with tears. ‘I don’t care,’ she said passionately. ‘I don’t care if you’re real.’

‘Do you care if it’s so dangerous it could kill us both?’

‘Life is great.’

‘Well then, dearly beloved,’ Daniel intoned, slipping the Diamond from the possibles sack, ‘with this ring I do thee wed. May I now kiss the bride?’

Jenny, staring into the Diamond, muttered, ‘In a minute.’

They both stared into the Diamond. Daniel saw immediately the glow was more brilliant – not brighter, really, but sharper. He needed to vanish to see inside.

Jenny put her hand on his thigh. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

Daniel looked at her and said as plainly and directly as he could, ‘I love you.’

Jenny threw back her head and laughed at the moon.

Perplexed, Daniel said, ‘That’s not what you wanted to know?’

Jenny stopped laughing, but couldn’t help smiling as she shook her head. She lifted the Diamond from his hands and placed it gently at the head of the comforter, the Diamond’s light and the light of the moon shimmering on the pale blue silk as if it were a pond in a high mountain meadow.

Jenny turned back to Daniel, on his knees facing her. She put her arms around him and pulled him close, whispering, ‘I do. I do. In sickness and in health. In life and death. Madness and folly. Till we part and after we part and right here and right now. I do.’

‘I have to tell you some things.’

‘No you don’t,’ Jenny promised.