IN THE AUTUMN, when the aspens turned the mountains into multitudes of gold, we took walks alone. Although when we first arrived we thought hiking was boring, later we wanted to see all of the mountaintops. On the highest slopes, the small leaves of the aspens quaked. And we listened to them—they were such exposed things holding on and making vulnerable, fluttering music—and this quaking gave us a peaceful feeling. We stood there thinking of nothing except leaves, leaves, leaves.
OR STANDING IN this grove brought out the melancholy in us, and we felt a rush of sadness, in our throats, in our stomachs, in our necks, but it, too, was not attached to any one thing in particular. It was just this, the aspen leaves, not falling, but making the sound of holding on.
WE WALKED BACK home. We had a secret. We set the table and laid out the steak we had saved our rations for and sat down. But before the first bite, we announced, I’m pregnant! Leon smiled and got up and kissed us and looked at us, really looked at us in the eye for what felt like the first time in months or Sam got up and left the table. And we said, What should we name him? We hoped it was a him and we had science backgrounds so we thought it would be funny to suggest first names that were elements from the periodic table and we said, Uranium Fisher, and before we could say more our husbands put their hands over our mouths. We asked, through voices muffled by their hands, What’s wrong?
SOMEONE WILL HEAR you. Keep quiet. They sat back down and stared at us. Somewhere the dry leaves were falling.