On Sunday morning the sun rising over the Blue Mountains made the frost glisten on the blades of grass and leaves. The sunlight made the white crystals sparkle like diamonds and worked a magical transformation—the frost turned to heavy dew everywhere the sunlight touched it. The long shadows protected patches of white crystals for a few more moments.
Cecile Carcano walked slowly through the frost, feeling it crunch ever so slightly under her boots, pausing occasionally and looking back at her tracks. She climbed the low hill behind her house and stood in the old apple orchard watching the sun work its magic.
Another perfect morning. At Doolin’s they assured her that nature had arranged this fantastic weather to welcome her. It wasn’t true, of course. The foggy mornings and afternoon thunderstorms of summer were over, and the autumn rains would soon come. In a few weeks drenching rains would pound the last of the leaves from the trees and saturate the earth for the coming winter. That was the cycle, as old as the planet.
“Savor the Days.” That was the title of this morning’s sermon, her first as the new minister of the Eden Chapel. And of course, Cecile Carcano had a slight touch of nerves.
She had originally intended to deliver her best sermon, a tautly written little masterpiece about man’s relationship with God that she had slaved on for months at divinity school. The professor gave her an A+ on it.
The Reverend Mr. Davis, the retiring minister, had assured her all would go well her first Sunday. He avoided commenting upon her sermon and merely bestowed a variety of platitudes and comforting words, which did nothing to quiet her anxiety.
Moses Grimes, one of the trustees, had been thoughtful when she talked to him earlier in the week. “They’ll be looking you over,” he admitted. “They want to see what kind of minister you’re going to be. If you use the pulpit to advance your social concerns, you won’t make it here.”
“I have social concerns, Mr. Grimes. I care about people. That is one reason I became a minister.”
“I understand. But the pulpit is not the place to tell people how to vote or what they should want their congressman to do. These people come to church to hear the word, to sing the old songs, to spend a few moments in the graveyard with their folks who’ve gone on before them.” Moses Grimes searched for what he wanted to say. “For these folks, church is a link with the past.”
“And a covenant with the future,” Mrs. Carcano said softly.
She solicited advice from another member of the board, Verlin Ice, when he stopped by on Saturday afternoon. He sat in her porch swing and spit tobacco juice over the rail. If Cecile Carcano was appalled, she didn’t show it.
“I’m not a preacher, never had the itch,” Verlin Ice told her. “Don’t know the first thing they teach in preacher school. But I’ve listened to preachers in these little churches all my life. I suggest you give ’em the word and let them figure out how to apply it. Don’t preach down to ’em. If you preach politics, you’re going to find the pews mighty empty after a few Sundays. That’s my advice, for what it’s worth.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ice,” Cecile said.
“One other thing. Occasionally ol’ Davis would bring in some visiting divine who would thunder about hellfire and eternal damnation, the wages of sin. Those services were always poorly attended. Were I the preacher, I’d avoid racy descriptions of the fires of hell. Never met a preacher yet who claimed he’d been there.”
“I’m not an evangelical.”
“These Eden people sort of suspect hell looks a lot like New York City and Washington, D.C.,” Verlin added, which made Cecile smile.
A little later he commented, “This congregation is yours to win, Mrs. Carcano. I believe you can do it or I wouldn’t have voted to invite you here.”
The trustees of the Eden Chapel had been remarkably unconcerned about matters theological, and for that Cecile was thankful. She suspected God didn’t pay much attention to theology, either. Had she been asked, she would have stated that theology was the invention of professional Christians in musty offices filled with musty books who had little else to think about between Sundays. God created all living things, but man created dogmas and doctrines that threatened to fossilize organized religion. She had stated this opinion when interviewed for an associate minister’s position at a large suburban church near Boston and had been politely shown the door.
God had brought her here instead, to Eden, given her this flock.
This morning in the orchard she gave thanks, asked for strength and wisdom, and walked back down the hill with the gentle rays of the morning sun caressing her face.
“You’ll do fine, Mom,” Jeanine Carcano told her mother as they walked the half mile to church.
When they came out of the house they automatically headed for the car. Cecile had the driver’s door opened before she realized this wasn’t the way she wanted to travel to her new church. “Let’s walk,” she suggested to her daughter, who was agreeable.
Now, walking along the road with the wind in the autumn leaves above their heads, Jeanine sensed her mother’s tension and reassured her.
“Thank you,” Cecile said. “But no matter what the congregation thinks, I hope you like the sermon.”
“I’m sure I will,” Jeanine said loyally. “But I wish Daddy were here this morning to hear it, too.”
“Dearest, your father will be with us today.”
“Like God?”
“Yes. I can feel God’s presence and your father’s. He loved us very much, and love abides forever.”
“Yes,” Jeanine agreed, “but I wish he were physically here. Walking beside us.”
“So do I.”
“Do you think you’ll ever marry again, Mom?”
“I don’t know, Jeanine. Perhaps if the right man comes along. We’ll have to wait to see if that ever happens.”
They rounded the corner and saw the church nestled under the giant maples flaming red in the morning sun. And they saw the crowd. Cars parked along both sides of the road, people filling the churchyard—the place was packed.
“Oh, wow,” Jeanine said. “This is going to be like Easter.”
As the small choir sang in the moments before the service, Cecile Carcano remembered that comment. When she got up to welcome the congregation, she told them about it. Gentle, warm laughter reached up to surround and envelop her.
After the service Lula Grimes paused at the door to visit. “You did well, Mrs. Carcano. I’m going to look forward to Sunday mornings.”
“Thank you. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you: I noticed that there are three little girls buried in one corner of the graveyard, all named Grimes. Are you related?”
“They’re my daughters. All stillborn. Something about positive and negative blood. I didn’t think God wanted me to have any babies, then Junior was born alive.”
“That must have been a difficult time.”
“Junior sure was difficult, but sometimes I miss the girls something terrible. I never really had them, and yet I did. If I could just reach out and grab what might have been…”
Verlin and Minnie Ice came out of the chapel together. Both were dressed in their Sunday best, which in Verlin’s case included a wide tie of the kind that went out of fashion twenty years ago. “You did fine, Reverend,” he said. “I do believe I might have taken to spreading the gospel if I had had just one sermon like that in me.” His eyes twinkled as a hint of a smile crossed his weathered brown face.
Minnie seemed the female version of Verlin, slightly smaller, same weathered face, work-hardened hands. “You’ll bring new life to this church and this community,” she told Cecile. “You did very well. I never thought I would see the day that a woman would be in that pulpit—and the men would like it.”
Reverend Davis, Mrs. Davis, and the widow Wilfred came out together. The women fluttered and the retired preacher beamed. “The Eden Chapel is in good hands,” he declared to everyone within earshot.
One of the last people to leave the church was Trooper Sam Neely, in civilian clothes. He murmured his “well done” to Mrs. Carcano, then lingered until everyone else was heading for the car, visiting graves in the cemetery, or chatting with each other under the giant maples. “Mrs. Carcano, I met someone yesterday who I think might enjoy a visit from you. I don’t know how busy you are or if he even belongs to this church.”
“I’m sure I could find time to call, Mr. Neely.”
“His name is J. S. Kline. He lives near Canaan.”
“I’ll find him. Thanks for suggesting it.”
A family came over and pressed a cold-chicken box lunch on Mrs. Carcano, so Sam Neely drifted away even though he hadn’t told the minister why she should see Mr. Kline.
Then he smiled. Cecile Carcano didn’t need any explanations. Of that he was sure. As he walked to his car he was whistling.
Sunday morning Elijah Murphy took a bath and shaved. Bathing was a lot of work since his shack lacked running water. He had to carry the water from the well and heat it on the woodstove, then pour it into a washtub on his back porch. Keeping the fire stoked, carrying the water, adjusting the temperature—it was so much work that he rarely got around to it when he was drinking. This Sunday bath was even more startling since he had a bath just three days ago while he was in jail. Still, he decided this morning to do it anyway. With the tub full of water, he stripped off his clothes and lowered himself into it.
Shaving usually involved heating a pan of water on the stove—a lot less effort than a bath but a lot of work nonetheless—so he normally accomplished that chore only once or twice a month. Today, since he was in the tub half submerged in hot water, he arranged a mirror against a table leg and scraped on the whiskers.
Clean as a new penny, wearing underwear that he had laundered last night and dried on the porch rail, he went hunting his old toothbrush. He found it in the kitchen cupboard. He didn’t look for toothpaste since he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he didn’t have any. However, he did have some baking soda, so he poured a dab on his toothbrush and scrubbed at his teeth.
He had one clean shirt left in the closet, the last survivor of his spring laundry day. No tie—he didn’t own one. He combed his hair, then brushed out the old blue suit he had acquired years ago at an estate sale and put it on. He finished the job by rubbing his leather boots with a rag to get off the worst of the dirt and give them a bit of a buff.
Then Elijah Murphy sat in the rocking chair on the front porch and treated himself to a cigarette. The tobacco in the pouch was pretty dry, but he resolved to smoke it anyway. His hands still shook a little, but not too bad. He got the tobacco onto the paper and the cigarette rolled and sealed without spilling more than two or three small crumbs.
He rarely got a cigarette because he was usually too drunk to roll one and there was no way he was going to squander his drinking money on store-bought weeds. He was philosophical about it. The fact that he couldn’t smoke drunk was probably the reason his shack hadn’t burned down.
On this happy thought he went into the house for a kitchen match to light his smoke.
He had been sober for ten days; ten long, long days. He had conveniently forgotten the drink the judge gave him.
He tried to remember how many years it had been since he had spent ten days cold sober. Well, it had been eleven years. Eleven years and four months, to be exact. The occasion had been three weeks in the county jail. He positively recalled that he had done that stretch in April, but he was a little hazy about the year. No. It had been twelve years and four months since he did that dry three weeks. Normally Judge Storm only gave him two or three days in the can: Storm was always worried about the county’s jail budget.
He could use a drink right now. Damn, would he like a drink!
But he wasn’t going to go to Doolin’s to buy a case of beer. No, sir. He wasn’t. Not this morning. He was going to sit here until the widow Wilfred came home from church, then he was going to call. Going to see what’s what.
That wasn’t to say he wasn’t going to fire up his old pickup and motor to Doolin’s this afternoon. He didn’t know. He was honest enough to admit that he was taking this sobriety experiment a minute at a time. Sitting on the porch puffing his cigarette and watching the breeze play with the treetops, he tried to think about something besides beer and whiskey.
His eyes finally came to rest on the mounds of junk and trash strewn all over his yard. He had what—four old cars? And an eclectic variety of engines and large major appliances, parts from bulldozers and sewing machines and hay bailers and Lord knows what all. Whenever he was working and someone wanted to get rid of some junk he always took it, brought it here and dumped it in the yard. The junk had been converted into a small stream of whiskey through the years—an old starter here, a few odd bolts there, that kind of thing. Fellows would bring a bottle, and Elijah Murphy would sit on his porch and drain it while they mined his junk.
I should do something about this mess, like clean it up.
That was a crazy thought, and the very fact that it just went flashing through his head startled him. He was really sober.
Elijah Murphy knew that he only got these weird urges when he was tombstone sober, without the slightest amount of alcohol anywhere in his system. Urges to move, to be doing something, to get things accomplished.
Of course, he tried to fight the urges. The fact is, all work is useless, like washing clothes. It really doesn’t matter; the world keeps turning whether you get the work accomplished or not, whether your shirt is dirty or clean.
He finished the cigarette and carefully stubbed out the butt.
Where was that woman? He had heard a car come up to her house this morning, then leave, while he was building a fire in the stove. No doubt she had gone to church with someone.
The sun climbed higher and higher. The sitting was very difficult.
Murphy desperately wanted to do something, anything, but he knew just about anything he attempted would get himself and the suit dirty and ruin this morning’s efforts, so he made himself sit through sheer force of will.
After a while he rolled another cigarette. He had it half smoked when he heard a car laboring up the grade.
He recognized the car when it came into view. Preacher Davis bringing the widow home. Thank heavens Mr. and Mrs. Davis merely stopped in the front to let her out. She waved good-bye as the car turned, then went inside as it drove away down the road.
Murphy gave her fifteen minutes, then went inside and brushed his suit again. He checked his reflection in the piece of mirror near the washstand. He was no youngster, that was for certain, but he was clean and polished enough for a funeral.
He went out on the porch, squared his shoulders and adjusted his suit coat, then went down the stairs, threaded his way through the junk and headed across the field.
The widow Wilfred answered the door the second time he knocked.
“Why, Mr. Murphy,” she finally exclaimed after she spent several seconds in silent amazement taking in the clean, shaved, obviously sober man who stood before her. “How nice of you to drop by.”
“Morning, Miz Wilfred. Just thought I’d drop by and pass a few minutes.”
“Please come in.” She held the door open. He stood inside the house looking around. He hadn’t been inside in years, not since before old man Wilfred was killed. Lordy, that had been ten, twelve years ago. Wilfred had worked in the woods and was crushed when a big oak log rolled off a truck.
The place was neat and clean as an operating room. And well lit. Little knickknacks stuck here and there, a photo of old Wilfred on the mantel…white lacy things on the stands and table…
“Will you sit a few minutes, Mr. Murphy? I’m making coffee.”
Elijah Murphy eased himself into a straight-backed cane chair near the door.
“Oh, no, Mr. Murphy. Try this one. This is the best chair.” His hostess indicated the big, overstuffed easy chair facing the fireplace, then fluttered off to the kitchen.
By God, Lester Storm was right! Here he was, Elijah Murphy, bold as Monday, sitting in the widow Wilfred’s parlor while she made coffee like he was the new preacher come to call.
“We were down at the Eden Chapel, Mr. Murphy,” she called from the kitchen. “This was the new lady preacher’s first Sunday. The Reverend Carcano. She gave a wonderful sermon. She even impressed Reverend Davis.”
“A lady preacher!” Elijah Murphy replied loudly from the depths of the overstuffed chair. “I do declare!”
In a minute or two she bustled from the kitchen carrying a tray with two cups of coffee on it, a sugar bowl, and a little ivory creamer. Elijah Murphy reminded himself not to spill any. Thank goodness his hands were not shaking much. The worst of the DTs were over. He grasped the saucer with both hands and put it on his knees. Then he spooned some sugar and poured a little cream into the cup.
Didn’t spill anything.
When the widow had doctored her coffee and was seated opposite him in another overstuffed chair, Elijah Murphy took an experimental sip.
“Miz Wilfred, this is the best coffee I ever drank, so it is.”
“Why, Mr. Murphy, how kind of you to say so.”
They sipped coffee, visited pleasantly about the weather, and Mrs. Wilfred told him all about the church service he had missed. She never hinted at the recent unpleasantness that had passed between them and resulted in Murphy’s extended stay at the county facilities. Fifteen minutes just flew by.
Murphy carefully put the cup and saucer back on the tray and stood. “Miz Wilfred, this has been very pleasant.”
“Must you go?”
“I think I’d better.” He paused at the door. “Miz Wilfred, I’m going to try to be a better neighbor from now on. Can’t make any promises, but I’m going to do my best.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time, Mr. Murphy. You look to me to be the kind of man who can do a thing when he sets his mind to it.”
“We’ll see how it goes, Miz Wilfred, so we will.”
He was off the porch and crossing the yard when she called, “Mr. Murphy? Will you come to dinner tomorrow night? I thought I might cook a roast.”
He turned and stood for several seconds looking at his neighbor framed in her doorway. She was a fine woman, without a doubt. “Thank you, Miz Wilfred. I’ll be delighted. See you then.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Murphy.”
He lifted a hand, then turned and walked around the hill toward his shack. As he approached it he surveyed his junk collection. He couldn’t do anything about that today, but he needed something to do. Well, the woodpile had shrunk to almost nothing and fall was here. He could change clothes, then chop some wood. That would raise a sweat and keep his mind off drinking.
“Mother!”
Anne Harris was sitting on a wooden bench near a stream behind the Elkins house when she heard the call. Her daughter’s voice. Ruth.
“Back here, Ruth.”
“Mrs. Elkins said she thought you were out here.”
“How are you?”
Ruth was twenty, of medium height, with her father’s eyes and facial features. The resemblance leaped at Anne as she looked at her daughter with the sun highlighting her cheekbones.
“Checking up on my parents. When are you going home?”
“I don’t know.” Anne shrugged. “Perhaps I won’t. I just…don’t know.”
“Oh, Mother! I never believed this could happen to you and Dad, of all people. I thought you two loved each other more than any other couple on this earth.”
Anne didn’t know what to say.
Ruth sat on the ground near her mother. After a while she asked, “Are you and Dad going to get a divorce?”
“I don’t know.” Anne thought that answer a trifle curt, so she added, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Ruth stood, dusted off her fanny, then leaned back against a tree trunk facing her mother. “Wait for what?”
“Wait.”
“I can’t believe you were in bed with Hayden Elkins.”
“What do you find unbelievable? That I was in bed with him, or that your father caught us?”
Ruth ran a hand through her hair. “Both, I guess.” When her mother didn’t reply immediately, she added, “Hayden Elkins, of all people. It’s so tacky.”
“Perhaps I should have chosen Junior Grimes?”
“Give me a break! I didn’t drive over here from State to listen to nonsense.”
“Why did you come?”
“To find out what is going on. Mom, why didn’t you call me and tell me you were having trouble with Dad? Your marriage was so solid.”
Anne Harris pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Every marriage has its ups and downs.”
“Mom! Adultery with Dad’s best friend is a little more serious than leaving the cap off the toothpaste. Why don’t you treat me like an adult and discuss this frankly, woman to woman?”
“I don’t know.”
Sensing she had a momentary advantage, Ruth attacked. “If it’s menopause, you could have discussed it with me. And with Dad. Every woman has to go through it. It’s certainly nothing—”
“I am not going through menopause.”
“Dad must have done something wrong. What?”
“Ruth, I don’t know why I did it. It seemed like a good idea at the moment. I don’t know that I will ever figure out why that was so. If and when I do, I don’t know that I will discuss it with you. It may be none of your business.”
“Don’t stonewall me!” Ruth pushed herself erect and stamped her foot. “This is my family, too, just as much as it is yours. You can divorce Dad, but I’m your daughter until the day you die.”
“A mother-daughter relationship has its limits. You must trust me to—”
“Trust you?” Ruth barked harshly. “Ha! That was Dad’s mistake.”
With that Ruth was gone, running through the trees toward the house.
“Ruth…Ruth…,” Anne called, but the child didn’t return and Anne didn’t go after her.
“Dad!”
“In here, Ruth.”
Ruth Harris came into the den and reached for the light switch. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I’m thinking,” Ed Harris told her. Actually he had been dozing in the easy chair. “Sometimes that goes better in the dark.”
“A beautiful autumn afternoon, and you don’t have the sense to let some of it in.” His daughter pulled the drapes open. Sunlight streamed into the room, illuminating the remnants of the Sunday newspaper strewn about the floor, several coffee cups, and a breakfast plate. “Look at this mess. You haven’t shaved and you’re still in your pajamas.”
“What are you doing home, Ruth? You must be missing a rally at the university about saving the world.”
“I decided to devote the day to checking up on my precocious parents. I’ve seen Mom, I’ve visited Granny Sarah, and now I’m checking on you in your den of sloth. You’ll be delighted to hear Mom is not sitting in the dark contemplating her navel.”
“She never has. Not once in her life.”
“Men are so messy,” Ruth declared.
“You’re going to make some man a fine mother, Ruth.”
“This situation is your fault, you know.”
“I know. I should have picked up the newspaper and run the dishwasher.”
“Dad!”
“Yes, Ruth.”
“You are so difficult to talk to. It’s like we live on different planets.”
“Stop talking to me like an errant child. I find that offensive.”
Ruth sat in a chair opposite him. She spent a moment gathering her thoughts, then said, “Mother is holding up well, I think.” She didn’t think that at all, but felt a lie might get this conversation flowing.
“Terrific.”
“Granny Sarah doesn’t have much time left. You should go see her.”
He nodded.
“She is such a dear,” Ruth murmured, her head bent so that he couldn’t see her face. When she raised her head, her voice sharpened. “How do you intend to resolve this situation?”
“I keep reminding myself that you are only twenty years old.”
“Mother at the Elkinses’—a ridiculous situation. It’s a farce. How long are you going to let it continue?”
“What did your mother say to that question?”
“Don’t avoid the issue. You sent her there with a gun at her back. Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not denying anything. And I’m not discussing my relationship with your mother with you. I never have and I never will.”
“Mother should come home, and you two should work out this matter like mature adults.” When her father didn’t reply to that suggestion, Ruth said, “Civilization has certainly advanced beyond the quaint morals of the World War II era. No one gets a divorce today because one partner has a sexual liaison with a third person. Sex is sex and love is love.”
What her father thought of this modern sentiment he didn’t say. Ruth sat on the couch looking around forlornly. Finally she said, “Dad, I love you. And I love Mother.”
“Your mother and I are living our lives and you are living yours,” Ed Harris gently told his daughter. “You must come to grips with the fact that you are not responsible for your parents.”
In the silence that followed she began to cry.
On top of everything else, now Ed Harris felt like a jerk. He moved over to the couch beside her. “It hurts when you see people you love mess up their lives, doesn’t it?”
She put her head on his shoulder and he put his arm around her. After a while he whispered, “Your mother screwed up and I screwed up, and we’re going to have to work it out, Ruth. If we can. When you love people you have to give them room to solve their own problems.”
“What if you and Mother can’t solve this one?”
“Then we’ll have to live with that.”
“Sometimes Mother has a difficult time understanding how other people feel.”
“That’s sort of a universal failing, isn’t it? Don’t we all have that weakness to some degree?”
Ed Harris loved his daughter desperately. Even at the age of twenty she retained a generous dollop of little girl that came out at odd times and captivated her father. Her favorite song, which she still sang when she thought no one was listening, was a ditty from a cartoon show entitled “Happy Happy Joy Joy.” Those words repeated with feeling constituted the only lyrics.
Sitting with her on the couch he remembered that song, and so many other moments that Ruth managed to make hers with effortless grace. Just before she left for school, she mentioned a boy’s name at the dinner table, one Aaron. Although he thought he knew the answer, Ed asked innocently, “Who is Aaron?”
Ruth drew herself fully erect in her chair, grinned widely, luxuriously, and announced with pride, “My new flame.”
To have such a daughter…he and Anne had truly been blessed.
“Being your father is one of the greatest joys of my life,” he murmured now.
They sat in silence. Finally her tears ceased to flow. She sat upright and reached for the box of tissues.
“You have a generous, loving heart, daughter. It takes courage to love. You have enough.”
“I don’t feel very courageous,” she muttered, swabbing her nose.
“Oh, you are. You have it, believe me. The love in your heart proves it. Whether your mother and I are brave enough is another question.” He rose. “Come on, let’s see what’s in the refrigerator. I’m hungry.”
Sam Neely decided to go calling Sunday afternoon. His apartment in Indian River was too small and oppressive. He brushed his teeth again, checked to make sure his clothes were immaculate and his hair combed perfectly, and set forth in his own automobile, a ten-year-old Ford with only ninety thousand miles on the odometer.
He rolled down the driver’s window and stuck his elbow out, inhaled deeply of that pure air, then dialed up some tunes on the radio. He hummed and patted the wheel. Ah, life is so sweet!
Junior Grimes was sitting on the bench outside Doolin’s when Neely went by. Junior waved and shouted, “Hey, Neely.”
The state trooper waved back, then at the schoolhouse intersection aimed the Ford up the right fork toward the Ice farm.
Crystal was sitting on the porch with two younger girls, her sisters probably, when Sam Neely whipped the Ford into the yard. He hopped out and strolled over.
She was reading a book, a paperback with a hunk on the cover, a bronze stud naked from the waist up, swinging a sword.
“Crystal, you probably don’t remember me, but my name’s Sam Neely. I’m the state trooper who brought Goofy home one day last week.”
“Of course I remember you, Mr. Neely,” Crystal said, laying aside her book. Both the younger girls giggled. They were junior high school age, Neely decided, but it’s hard to be sure these days. From puberty to forty, they all look like the universal dream girl. These two sure did, healthy, tan…No wonder old man Ice commented on the parade of young males that continually marched by.
Crystal stood, a fluid, lithe motion, raised her arms to stretch, then fluffed her hair with one hand. She reminded Neely of an awakening cat.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said. The girls broke into peals of laughter, but she silenced them with a look and jerked her head toward the front door. Still laughing, they went inside.
“They are my brother’s daughters,” she said. “To see them carry on, you’d think they’d never seen a man in their whole lives.”
“You look mighty fine this afternoon,” Neely remarked, because he couldn’t think of anything else and he sure didn’t want this conversation to drag.
“Thank you. Would you like to sit down, or perhaps go for a walk?”
“A walk? That sounds perfect on a day like this.”
Crystal came down the steps of the porch and started around the house. Neely fell in beside her. “If you told me where you’re from, Mr. Neely, I’ve forgotten.”
“Capitol City. And please, call me Sam.”
“Okay, Sam,” she said, and grinned, flashing perfect white teeth.
Sam Neely felt so good he thought he’d burst. As they strolled up the hill into the orchard exchanging small talk and getting acquainted, he felt as if he were going to float off the ground like a helium balloon. It was a curious feeling, and a new one. He had just never felt this good before in his life, he decided.
“It’s certainly a perfect day for a walk,” he declared at one point, which wasn’t an original thought but one that needed commenting upon, and Crystal agreed. The leaves, the balmy temperatures, the pastel sky, the warm shadows—it was a day from a dream. And to be walking and chatting with such a beautiful girl…Who would have thought that life had moments like this to offer?
Finally he stopped savoring his own sensations and concentrated on the woman who walked beside him. They climbed into the forest and found a seat on a fallen log on the ridge. There was an old limb sticking up from the log that Crystal leaned back against.
It was weird, but she looked somehow different than she did a few days ago when he first saw her. Just how she was different he couldn’t say. Still, he got that feeling, and it was a little strange.
The feeling passed, however, as he was warmed by the heat of the vibrant femininity that emanated from her. Life, he concluded. She radiated life.
A chipmunk came out to play in the nearby leaves, and they fell silent for a moment as they watched. When they resumed their conversation the chipmunk discovered their presence. He ran about ten feet, then stopped and stared at them. Finally he concluded that they were harmless and returned to his search for nuts and seeds amid the leaves.
After a while Crystal rose from her seat on the log. Neely popped up, too…and she slipped her hand in his. Cool and firm, her flesh gave Neely a jolt as if he had touched a hot wire. He managed to hang on anyway.
As she chatted and laughed and listened carefully to all the wise and witty remarks he made, she led him along the ridge, deeper into the forest.
He thought he could feel the earth spinning. He was lying on his back amid the leaves and she was on top nibbling on his ear and cheek. “Oh, Sam…,” she whispered, and he could feel the rotation of the earth, feel the spin as the planet whirled on its axis and threatened to throw them from the surface into that blue sky above the fiery leaves, toss them into the great black infinite depths beyond.
He pressed both hands against the earth, trying to hold on as Crystal unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest and her hair caressed his chin and the clean, piney smell of it filled his nostrils.
“We shouldn’t,” he said softly.
“Oh, Sam…”
She had been leaning back against a tree and her lips were so inviting, so irresistible…and he had been unable to help himself. Her lips parted to meet his and her arms came up around his shoulders and he was totally enveloped by her sensuality.
Now they were in the leaves, hearts pounding, her hands and lips stroking, moving…
She lay beside him afterward, her head on his shoulder, her fingers twining knots in his chest hair.
“It’s getting dark,” he said finally.
“I suppose.”
“Crystal, I didn’t want—”
She placed her fingers on his lips. “Don’t spoil it,” she said, “by saying something we’ll both regret.”
They got dressed and hand in hand walked back along the ridge as the shadows gave way to twilight.
As they came down through the orchard she said, “I would invite you in, but Mom may not have enough food fixed to serve you dinner, and I know she would want to.”
“Another evening,” he said.
“Yes. Another evening, lover.”