life in the family room-kitchen area.
After arriving home she slept again. At 10:30 she awoke and looked at the luminescent red numbers on the clock atop the TV cabinet. Startled, she sat upright trying to think about homemade granola and what she would wear and what Sam would think.
She walked to the kitchen and crawled up on a stool overlooking the granite kitchen bar. She noticed that the pattern in the granite sort of shimmied, and hoped it wasn’t some weird neurological problem.
On the counter was an article about Steven Spielberg and the history of his moviemaking career including his youthful efforts at filmmaking. The man’s passion for the craft appeared relentless. Next to the article was Atonement, a novel that began with Briony’s passion for her play. Because she was just a child, Briony’s passion was unmetered by doubt. Anna could connect both with Spielberg and Briony.
Anna’s mother, being a Catholic, taught her that the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. For Anna that seemed a distant way to define her life and not quite close enough to the pavement. Life for Anna was founded on a first truth. It was at once a revelation and a premise. The chief end of man was to make responsible use of his freedom.
In Anna’s mind people had the best chance of squeezing the most out of their choices if they focused their attention on just a very few simple things. Sometimes only one or two.
Such focused attention on a single detail of life was what Anna called passion and it was the bedrock of her being. Great lives could be formed around many kinds of passion: a passion for God, or the expression of man’s woes and triumphs as in art or theater. It could be growing roses in the backyard or being a good steward of some treasure.
If she had a steely spine, as some said, it was only her passion for a single simple thing. She wanted to use her lips, her body, and her mind to tell great stories. There were, of course, obstacles, and steel spines were good for overcoming them.
Now it was occurring to her that one passion might not be enough. Perhaps a second could be fit into the stuff of her life and she might use her freedom to cultivate this second passion as well, but as yet it had not been made simple. That was a prerequisite. She knew that a part of finding her second passion was in turning around Jason’s life and the damage she had done. She was deeply suspicious that this second passion might also be related to getting to know the right man.
As she pondered Sam’s visit, her old impatience to help her brother returned. The phone rang.
“I’m on my way.” It was Sam on his cell phone.
“Great. You like granola?”
“Yep.”
“Have you learned anything?”
“Hal hasn’t finished looking. I did learn something interesting, though. Tell you when I get there. Not on a cell phone.”
“Well, hurry up, Sam.”
Despite her anxiety over Jason, she felt a strong sense of anticipation that Sam was coming. She found herself looking in the mirror pondering her hair, and the complete lack of any makeup. She could wear a thick robe or a thin one, silken or soft and shapeless. She daubed Joy perfume and felt completely ridiculous, then began with her hair. After a few minutes she figured it was decent. Going to the “old and comfortable” section of the closet, she grabbed a Lands End terry-cloth robe.
In her closet there were two full-length mirrors. She looked at herself and thought about Sam, his cool good looks, his easy confidence.
“Damn,” she muttered, walking back to the bathroom, brushing her hair more vigorously and applying a little rouge before the doorbell rang. When she started getting a crush on a man it didn’t matter about Oscars, or the adoration of millions, it mattered only about the one.
She trotted back to the closet, put the terry-cloth robe on a hook, and grabbed a Donna Karan robe instead. Blue with gold trim. Stylish but not steamy.
“You nut,” she said aloud as she glanced in the mirror one last time.
When she arrived at the entry she found Sam wearing a leather coat, a gray sport shirt, and black pants.
“Hi,” he said, and kissed her cheek.
There was only a brief, slightly disappointing hug. Something was on his mind. With other normally inscrutable men, a few actually, she could feel their mood when they walked past. It occurred to her that most such men had either been her lovers or were related to her.
Suddenly she had a hunch about what-other than her brother’s disappearance, dead friends, and a wounded pilot-might be bothering Sam.
“You’re worried about the kiss. That’s so touching.”
“Touching?”
“You’re afraid of hurting me.”
There was just a ripple across Sam’s cool.
“And you came all the way out here to talk about it.”
Sam looked at her, saying nothing, knowing that there were many weak words and few that were strong. He could talk about his need for privacy and that would be nearly indistinguishable from whining. Reasoning would be obvious and trivial, for there would be no logic on this subject that hadn’t already occurred to her.
So he watched her. As he did he noticed the brown amber of her eyes, and the way she half smiled but without the usual confidence. Normally there was a great evocative force to her personality, but she was not using it. Instead she seemed like an accomplished but vulnerable woman. Once again her hair was studied chaos with even more curly ringlets. There was a softness about her that made him want to crush her in his arms and whisper things. He could imagine that she would giggle softly in his ear and tease him with her fingers.
Apparently on impulse she stepped forward and kissed him, tentatively at first, then a little harder. Sam responded, then stopped.
“So?”
“I suppose we should… I know I kissed you yesterday and it was good. And this was better. But I’m thinking that until we get this figured out…”
She kissed him again, her tongue like a butterfly, her lips firm. He let his arms stay around her for a long moment, then released her.
“That was just one for the road until you get it worked out,” she said.
“You’re an amazing woman.”
“And?”
“We’ve got to put your brother first. This… kind of thing will slow us down.”
“I see.”
“What do you see?”
“That must be the right thing-keeping our relationship professional. It’s just that…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Well, of course I understand.” She gnawed on her lip. “I still expect you to accompany me to the studio party.” But she smiled when she said it so that he knew it was a tease and not a weight around his neck.
“I have been thinking about it. Maybe I could take you. Maybe you could say I was like the friendly security man or something. But it’s still a bad idea.”
“Shall I take that as a complete capitulation?” she joked.
“And might we add the little detail that you will never consider talking about me? I mean other than the security-man story at the party.”
She batted her eyes to tease him. “You are as safe with me as I am with you.” She kissed him on the cheek and ran her hand over his bicep. “So what were you going to tell me? Your tone suggested something important. You talk while I start on the granola.”
Using a mixture of oats and almond and walnut fragments, she ladled on some canola oil and some honey, spread it on a pan, and popped it into the hot oven to bake.
“You’ve been asking about my former love interest,” Sam said.
