Lamb

The best way to honor your life is to perform every act with ceremony. Don’t do sloppy work. Tie your shoes carefully. Comb your hair carefully. And right now, he said, honoring our lives means packing carefully for the hike.

“But you’re packing,” she said, “like we’re never coming back.”

“Well, you still talk,” he said, “like you think we’re in a movie.”

He kneeled to the ground whenever they came upon something new in the grass and weeds as they hiked out through the public lands beyond the old and abandoned ranches and along the major river. Tiny bloodred urns of prairie smoke, animal shit marbled with fur, and the slender bones of sparrows and deer mice.

“See this one?” he whispered. “See those little green hearts on the inside? The green middle? The way they all cluster at the top here?” He made a circle with his index finger from the petals to the stamen.

Nod.

“If we dug it up, the roots would be scaly and black.”

“No way.”

“Like the hide of the devil himself.”

She curled her lip.

“It’s so poisonous that a single blossom would kill someone your size.”

“Whoa.”

“Put you right to sleep like a princess in a fairy tale.”

“How many would it take to kill you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m a big guy.”

“But how many?”

“More than someone like you could gather in a single day.”

“I wasn’t saying anything.”

“Neither was I.”

“What’s it called?”

“I can’t remember. Death something. Or deathly something. Do you want to keep one?”

“Is it poisonous to touch?”

He plucked the cluster and they held their breath, both of them eyes wide and tracing its arc through the air as he slowly lowered it between two pages of American elms in her new North American tree book. “You be careful with this.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Em. If anyone saw it they’d know you were out west.”

“Okay.”

The meadow between the house and the hem of the mountains was wider than Lamb had reckoned. By the time they had crossed halfway to the swell of hill and trees, it had been nearly two hours of steady hiking, and their pants were soaked to the knees and their boots caked with manure and mud.

“If we hadn’t got you those boots, we’d have had to go back an hour ago.”

“Why?”

“In tennis shoes your feet would be blistered all to hell from wet socks.”

“Oh.”

“This is the part where you say, Gee, Gary, where would I be without you?”

“Gee, Gary, where would I be without you?”

“Tommie. Don’t ever say anything like that to a man.”

The passing day was marked by ravens calling, by constant twittering of song sparrows in the trees and on the fence posts. Acres of dry grass banded by red and gold ribbons of fireweed and yellow gumweed. Sagebrush grew to the height of the girl’s throat, and after once lifting her over a wall of fallen alder he backed up and hurdled it.

“I can still get up there!” he said, panting on the other side, hands on his knees, grinning up into the light at her.

“You’re not that old.”

“Oh, say that again, you sweet child.”

“You’re not. You’re not that old.”

By noon they were climbing the ridge, the aspen groves sporadically shading the sun from their foreheads and arms.

“What are these things everywhere?”

“Cow patties.”

“Cow patties?”

“Cow shit.”

“There’s flowers growing out of them.”

“I know it. Come here. I want to put some more sunblock on your face.”

“Why are they flat?”

“Cow faucet.”

“Sick.”

“Come here.” He squeezed a white pasty worm of sunblock into his hand. “Give me your face.”

“It won’t help.”

“I’m beginning to see that. You’re a little fragile, aren’t you?” He slathered her bluish white with the stuff, her skin hot to the touch, covering her face and nose and cheeks and collarbones and neck.

“I should have bought you a hat.”

“Like your dad’s cap?”

“A forest ranger hat. Let’s get one. Let’s braid your hair and get you a forest ranger hat.”

“What’s a forest ranger hat?”

“It’s what you need. Trust me. Hey.” He kneeled. “What do you think that is?”

“Footprints.”

“I know that,” he said. “Of what?”

“A bear?”

“No. That’s from a coyote. Maybe a fox. Come here,” he said, lowering his voice. “Get down here and I’ll show you.”

On their knees in the weeds and dust he pointed at the paw print, its tiny dashes of claws in the dirt. “See that? That means it’s from a kind of dog, rather than a kind of cat.”

“Like a wolf?”

“Nah. No wolves up here. Just coyotes.”

“Don’t they bite?”

“They won’t bother us.”

“When is it a cat?”

“No claw marks.” He erased the claw marks with his thumb. “Like that. Got it?” And Tom. If you’re out on a hike and it’s a cat, like a mountain lion, you get out of town, okay?”

“Now someone behind us will think there’s a lion out here.”

“Is there someone behind us?”

“If there was, they’d be scared.”

“Aren’t we smart to make our trail safe like that?”

“Pretty smart.”

“Do you think it would work in Lombard, if you drew cat prints on the sidewalk with a piece of chalk?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Maybe we could empty out the city that way,” he said, standing and wiping off his knees. “We could have the whole place to ourselves.”

“If there were a real mountain lion in the city,” the girl said, standing and copying him, brushing off her pants, “they’d just shoot it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s correct.” He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked out ahead. “Listen. Let’s make a deal about this hike. We’ll eat lunch in the lowest trees we find, then head back.”

“How far do you think that is?”

“Two more miles. Are you good for it?”

“This is the farthest I’ve ever gone.”

“It’s good for you. You have to get your heart rate up every day.”

Two hours past noon they reached the sudden tilt in the ground that eventually rose—still another mile before them—into the distant mountains socked in by clouds. The greasewood and sage gave way to taller brush, smaller trees braceleted with poison oak and ivy. It was dense. There was no trail.

It was hot. Everything bleached white and yellow in the punishing heat. When Lamb turned and saw the girl working her legs and sweating and squinting into the sun—Christ, what can a man say? It was like his bones had been wired tight all his life, and seeing her that way, everything suddenly went slack. His mind unwinding like a spool of loose thread. What a man she rendered him, simply by being a girl who could be picked up and moved: what he wanted to be, what he ought to be, what was most unintelligible and unplanned and true in him when he carried her out of her fettered world to this. How powerful she was as long as she asserted no will of her own.

“You okay back there?” he called into the open blue before him.

“Yep.”

“Strong girl.”

“It’s from swimming,” she called up.

He stopped. “Jessie really took you swimming?”

She put her hand to her forehead. “Every morning at five in the goddamned morning. He makes me do a mile in his lane, then he does another one.”

He stared at her. “Did he take you swimming on the mornings I picked you up and took you for pancakes?”

She shrugged.

“Well.” He nodded. “Good for Jessie.”

“Yeah,” she snorted. “But not so good for me.”

He turned around and increased his pace. “I am not going to have any sympathy then,” he said, “knowing you can swim a mile.”

When they came into the trees they were surrounded by white legs of aspen, yellow leaves flashing like golden coins above them. Sweet clover and Queen Anne’s lace, cow parsnip and yarrow and stemless white flowers in pretty green-and-white whorls at their feet. Clouds came up above the canopies of trees and the wind swept them across a sky so simultaneously bright and dark it stopped David Lamb’s heart and he thought, this is it, this is the limit of all of it, right here: me and this child and all the money and progress that’s brought us here. This is the limit. And he smelled the sunblock and his own sweat and knew that the end of the story had already begun.

They sat cross-legged on the earth. Lamb took off his father’s ball cap—because I’m sitting down to a meal, he said—and opened his pack and removed the potted ham and butter sandwiches and the girl took the apple juice out of her pack.

“Oops,” he said. “We forgot cups. You don’t mind sharing?”

“Nah.”

“What if I have cooties?”

She rolled her eyes.

“What, you don’t care?”

“I don’t believe in cooties.”

“That’s dangerous thinking if I’ve ever heard it.”

“Well, I’m thirsty.”

A big wind moved through the bunched tops of spruce and fir, and the long white aspen swayed like wooden pins. The girl’s hair blew across her bluish face.

“You look like a dead girl.”

“I do?”

“Your face is all white. It’s a little unsettling. Did you eat that flower?”

“No.”

“You look very, very strange. Your skin is iridescent.”

“I wish I could see.”

“Here. I have an idea.” Lamb set his half-eaten sandwich on the top of his pack and ran a fingerful of dark, greenish-black dirt in three stripes across each of her cheekbones.

“Was that a cow patty?”

“Probably at some point.”

“Sick, Gary.”

“But it looks beautiful, Em. You look beautiful. I wish you could see.”

“How does it look?”

“Like you’re some wild stray piece of earth that took the form of a girl.” He looked at her. “I’m going to tell you something very serious, but you have to promise not to take it the wrong way.”

“Okay.”

“Are you listening with all your ears?”

“Yes.”

“Just this, Tommie: you will never look so beautiful again in this lifetime.” He opened the apple juice and handed it to her. “Drink that.” He picked up his sandwich. “I don’t want you getting dehydrated. You’re a great little hiker. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks.” She lifted the bottle to her mouth.

“If you were in Lombard today, what would you be doing?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

She looked up into the tree branches. “Probably be going home from school.”

“All alone?”

“I’d check my computer. Or watch TV.”

“When you get back home, will you make yourself potted ham and butter sandwiches and think of me?”

“Sure.” She leaned back on one hand and took a bite. “If you can get this stuff.”

“You can find it at the 7-Eleven.”

“I’m not supposed to go in those.”

“The 7-Eleven?”

“Mom says weird people hang out there.”

“That’s a good mom.”

“I guess.”

“So I’ll send you boxes of potted ham. No return address. It will be very mysterious. And when you open a can you can pretend it’s a love letter.”

“Gary!”

“Oh, ignore me. You should ignore everything I say.”

She made like bearing her fangs when she noticed him staring at her. They finished their sandwiches and juice, and Lamb took a chocolate bar out of his pack and broke it in half.

“Know what we need to really make this perfect?”

She took half the chocolate.

“Binoculars.” He nodded up toward the north end of the plain. “I bet we could see all kinds of mule deer and pronghorn.”

“Those dots?”

“If we go back into town, we’ll get you a pair. They’re expensive.”

“Like how much?”

“Hundreds. Tell you what. We get a pair, they’re yours to keep.”

“Okay.”

“We’re going to need a moving truck to get all your new stuff back to Illinois.”

She laughed.

“Where are you going to hide all of your presents when you get home?”

“My closet.”

“You’ve already figured it out.”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t anybody go in your closet?”

“Nope.”

“Not even your mom on Saturday mornings when she’s gathering the laundry.”

“I do my own laundry.”

“Do you really?”

“Yep.”

“No, really?”

“For serious.”

“Do you separate the whites and the colors?”

“Whites get hot, colors get cold.”

“You’re a resourceful girl, you know that?”

When they finished and packed up their things, he stood. “I’m going to see a man about a horse. You stay put.” The girl waited and Lamb watched her from a distance, zipping up. When she looked up, he held up his thumbs and index fingers in a rectangle as if he were holing her in the frame of a photograph. He could see the little white flash of her smile, and when he reached her, he went into his pack and handed her a little tuft of toilet tissue. “Your turn. That man wants to know what you think of a red pony.”

“Huh?”

“After you wipe, put this under a rock or use a stick to put some dirt over it.”

“Gary!”

“Don’t get squeamish on me. This is just our bodies, right? Don’t you know how a male body works?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. And I know how a female body works. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. I’m glad we got that out of the way. Now go on and take care of business.”

They hiked in through the valley side by side, two dark figures tracing the grassy inside slope of a pale green parabola, their shadows lengthening before them, the girl in a wreck of sweat and dirt and dust and sunblock and cow shit.

They reached the shop again in late afternoon, the girl carrying the empty canteens, one over each shoulder, canvas straps marking her chest. Lamb was bare chested, his blue work shirt tied into a turban over the girl’s head. He hadn’t known about skin like hers. Even sunblock couldn’t help. He should have spread cow shit all over her face.

“We’ll help you rinse off with cool water and soap you off before it hurts to the touch.”

“It doesn’t feel bad.”

“It will.” He ran his hands under the hose faucet and back through his hair. “If we were out working we’d rinse our hats and shirts in the river and put them back on.”

“Can I get a root beer?”

“Good idea. Get me one of those other beers will you?”

“Do I get a sip?”

“One sip. Take it right off the top and bring me the rest. I’ll get the soap.”

Lamb went into the cabin for towels and bath soap and on his way out saw a flash of Alison Foster’s white hair in the doorway of the shop. In two steps Lamb was through the door, filthy, old ratty towels rolled up beneath his arm, and just in time to see Tommie—her face a terrific ruin—turning around from the workbench and lowering the open beer from her lips, her little mouth pursed in a conspiratorial grin pointed mistakenly at Foster, whose presence she’d taken for Lamb’s.

Lamb stepped past the old man, took the beer from her hand, and slapped her full across the face. His hand stung and for a moment he was afraid she was going over. It was too much. He’d never hit anyone so small. She looked up at no one, stunned. She raised her hand to her face. She made no sound. He loved her for it.

“Go inside.”

“I hate you.” A shaking whisper.

“No you don’t.”

She looked from Lamb to the old man and back again and ran out. Lamb stood still, blood beating hard in the sides of his neck and inside his thighs and rushing hot through his face and the palms of his hands. It was the sun working in him. He let his eyes shut halfway and took a deep, steadying breath. She’d go off in the grass behind the shop, or beyond the outbuildings or to the river. She’d be back. There was nowhere for her to go. He set the full beer on the workbench. The breeze from the open window was cool and the blue sky was beginning to darken. Shadows were already capturing the trees at the river. Box elder leaves paler than they’d been two days ago.

Lamb exhaled. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“Well.” Foster widened his small eyes and looked at the floor. For half a minute neither man spoke.

“She’s never done that before.”

“I guess a little taste of beer never hurt anybody.”

Lamb said nothing.

“You went for a walk,” Foster said. It was not a question.

“We had a little snack out there behind some old homestead.”

“Thought I saw you going north.” Lamb envisioned the old man on his rooftop with binoculars. “You shouldn’t,” Foster said.

“We didn’t. Well, initially we did. But we crossed back and went out that way.” He looked off beyond the old man as if he were pointing through the wall. “How far does that go?”

“Ninety mile.”

“All BLM?”

“Mostly.”

“Not much out there.”

“Beef cows.”

“We saw signs of that.”

“You don’t want to go north,” Foster said again.

“Some unfriendly landowners that way, what?”

The old man watched Lamb. “Ed Granger. Had a metal plate put in his head in eighty-one.”

“That right?”

“Never been right since.”

“Where’s that property start?”

“And he doesn’t like children.”

“I see.”

“Maybe you ought to go see about her.”

Lamb looked up. “Who? Em?”

Foster returned the gaze.

“She’s okay.” Lamb gestured with his head toward the cabin, wondering if Foster had seen her outside, through the window behind him. “She’s got a lot to deal with right now. Her mom gone and all.”

Foster looked at him with eyes Lamb couldn’t read.

“Her own mother was the drunk in that wreck.”

“Shame.”

“I know it.”

“But this is no place for a girl.” The old man surveyed the steel beams crossed above them. “Helped my brother-in-law Calhoun put this place up in seventy-four.”

“I remember you saying.”

“He had a godchild running around here back and forth all over the goddamned place. Just about lost her arm on a square of sheet metal.” He made a slicing motion across the belly of his forearm. “She was just a little thing.” The old man shook his head. “Kind of picture you don’t forget.”

“No, I’m sure.”

“Seventy-eight miles to a hospital. As you would know.”

Lamb looked out the window behind him toward the river and tree line, as if he might find the correct response out there. “I didn’t think things through too well, I guess. I’m not used to having a child around.” He turned back to Foster. “But if that’s the closest hospital, that’s something I should have taken into consideration.”

“You ought to take her home. Your home. Somebody’s home.”

Lamb said nothing.

“Pardon me if I’m speaking out of line.”

“No,” Lamb said, “you’re right. I guess we’ll head back in a couple days. I was just… we’re expecting company. A friend.”

The old man held his chin up. He raised a palsied, spotted hand. “I’ll leave you to your troubles.” He made for the door.

“Was there something you wanted, Foster?”

“Just see how you’re getting on. Let you know snow’s on its way.”

“We’ll be all right. You’re welcome anytime.”

“Pretty night coming on.”

“Yeah, she is.”

When the old man left, Lamb leaned against the workbench, his back to the window, and drained the beer as the shop darkened. He waited. He moved the lawn chair from beside the woodstove to the far corner of the shop and sat on the floor, his legs stretched out before him. He sat there an hour, then went out through the bunk room door and pissed in the weeds. It was dark but he could still see the green of the grass. He waited. Listened. He had no sense of where she was, so he walked back into the shop and left the door open behind him—that was as far as he’d go. She must have been waiting for it, because soon after he heard the main door swing open. She caught it to keep it from slamming, but he knew she was coming. When she stepped into the doorway the night was lit up blue-black behind her. She stood still looking in. He could tell she’d washed her face.

“You were supposed to be the lookout,” he said from the floor across the room.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have to pay attention to everything now. Do you see? Everything depends upon it. Our friendship depends upon it. You have to be awake.”

She was crying. She’d been crying for some time. She came to him.

“Tell me what it is,” he said.

She nodded and made little choking noises back in her throat. It was big crying. She ran her arm beneath her nose and Lamb reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. “Here,” he said, but she let it hang loosely in her fingers and fall from her hand. He picked it up and she took it, wiped her nose. “What’s the worst of it? That you feel bad like you ran away?” She shook her head. “That I slapped you?” She shrugged. “That you feel stupid. You feel like I tricked you into liking me then I turned around made you look bad in front of Mr. Foster.” She nodded. “Well. That makes sense. And I’m not surprised. But I want to say something about that, okay? When you calm down. Will you sit down here beside me? I’m not going to touch you. Right here. Good. Okay.” She sat on her feet a few inches beside him. “Now take a deep breath. That’s not a deep breath. Come on. I’ll do it with you. Ten of them, okay? Inhale,” he said. “All the way, nice and slow. Let it out. Nice and slow. Again. Big deep breath. Okay. Nine. Big breath. Again.” She breathed and listened to him breathe and counted backward to zero. “Better? Do you feel better?”

She shrugged.

“You’re shrugging at me.”

She shrugged again.

“You must be very upset.”

She stared at the floor.

“Can you listen to me even though you’re upset? Good. Now. Come over here. I can touch you? It’s okay if I touch you? How’s your skin? All burnt to hell, huh?” She smiled, and he put his arm around her and drew her in. “Come here, Tom. That’s all. Good.” He combed back her greasy hair with his fingers until his hand was behind her head. “Now,” he said, “I know that you’re upset. But what we’ve just done, my dear, is protect our friendship exactly the way we’ve been saying we’d have to. Right?” The girl did not move. He spoke very low, very gentle. “Imagine if I had not reacted like an angry uncle. What do you think Mr. Foster would have done? What do you think he would have made of a man letting his niece drink beer?”

Shrug.

“It’s child abuse, Tom.”

“It is?”

“Yes. It is.”

“He might call the police then,” she said, her voice hoarse from crying.

“Maybe. Although—and I’m not sure if this would be much better—he might just start stopping by a lot, right? Checking in. Ruining the week.”

“Oh.”

“But at worst, Tom, eventually he probably would have called somebody. Then I would have gone to jail, the police would have found out who you are and where you belong, and how do you think they would react to that back in Lombard?”

“Not good.”

“That’s correct. Not good.” They looked each other in the eye. “And what do you think Mr. Foster is actually thinking now?”

She stared down at the concrete floor.

“Out here you step out of line your dad’ll whip off his belt and bend you over and give you hell and high water.”

“Oh.”

“So I’ll tell you what’s happening right now down the road in that little white-painted house. Mr. Foster is mixing a basin of warm soapy water to wash his sick wife’s face with, and he’s thinking only about her, and about the temperature of the water, whether it’s too hot or too cold, and of her wrinkled face, and of whether she knows it’s him washing her. Maybe he’s crying over her face. Maybe he’s over crying about it. But I’ll tell you one thing he isn’t thinking about: you and me. Because on his walk back through the evening he would have already decided that in terms of us, everything is as right as rain. Wouldn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And no police, and no angry mom, and no friends in Lombard who think you were in love with me and running away from Jessie. Right? Everything fine, the evening fine, the sky the color of a dark blue crayon, and the wind picking up because it’s October, and it’s the mountains, and it was all more beautiful than anything our girl had ever seen, right?”

She nodded at the floor, then looked up at him. “His wife is sick?”

“Very sick.”

“Aren’t you cold?”

He looked down at his chest. “No,” he said. He took her hand and opened her palm and pressed it to him. “Feel how warm.”

“Me too.”

“I know it. You’re sunburned. And Tommie, dear. Will you look at me? Can you see me?” She looked up.

“Didn’t we say this was going to require being a lookout, protecting each other? Didn’t we say this was unusual?”

“Yes.”

“I know we did. We shook on it. And you’re a girl who keeps her word.” He reached for the handkerchief and wiped at her tears. “It just breaks my heart to see you crying.”

This renewed her tears some.

“Say you forgive me. Say you understand.”

“I forgive you. I understand.”

“But do you mean it?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Oh, Tom.” He opened his arms. “Come. Will you hug me? Will you let me hug you?” He wrapped his arms around her. “You’ve washed up. But I’m all stinking and sweaty.”

“I only washed my face,” she said over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry about the cow shit.”

“I don’t think it was cow shit.”

“Your body feels very warm. Do you think you have a fever?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does your body hurt?”

“A little.”

“Ache from hiking or ache from fever? Can you tell?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Well, it’s probably both.” He held her thirty seconds, a minute, two minutes during which they did not speak or move. “Tom.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I’m not a bad guy. Do you believe me?” He put his hands to her shoulders and pushed her away a little and looked at her, holding on to her.

She nodded.

“This is something I’ve been keeping from you, okay? And we said we’d share everything, didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

He put two fingers beneath her chin and drew her face toward his own. “In Iowa we said we weren’t going to do this. Do you know what I’m referring to?”

“I think.”

He made a troubled face. “Tommie. I’m sort of out of familiar territory here. Do you understand?”

Nod.

“You feel a little bit the same way, don’t you? Please say yes or no. Please do me that courtesy.”

“Yes.”

“Yes you do?”

“Yes I do.”

“Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“I think so.”

“You think so. Okay.” He held her, her head in his hand. She sat sideways on her knees. “I don’t know what to do here, Em.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” He laughed. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

She stared at him. He lifted her face again, close to his own. Her eyes were the largest he’d ever seen them. And here’s the truest statement anywhere about her: she was the loveliest, the most perfect creature he had ever had the honor to touch beneath the face, to take up in his arms. He pressed his mouth lightly to hers—it was very small and chaste. A fatherly kiss. Then he pulled his head back a little and surveyed her face in the dark. “We said we weren’t going to do that, didn’t we?” His voice was raspy. His breath smelled just faintly of beer. “But we both sort of wanted to, didn’t we?” She nodded, and he pulled her in and squeezed her then let go again. “Does this feel scary to you?”

Shrug.

“Does it feel like we’re doing something that isn’t allowed?”

“Sort of.” She was barely audible.

“Because I kissed you or because I’m older than you.”

Shrug.

“Don’t shrug on this one, Emily Tom. We need to look at this from every angle. We need to confront it, right? Is it because you’ve never kissed anyone before? Or because I’m a little older than you are?”

She nodded.

“Both?”

“Both,” she said.

“Good. I need to hear that. Let me tell you something about age, okay? When you get older, you begin to appreciate how short life is. I mean really short. I mean you really get to know it. Like in your bones. And what happens then, is everybody becomes a little ageless.”

“Oh.”

“Does that make sense?”

“A little.”

“Tell me something. Doesn’t Jessie ever kiss you good night?”

“No.”

“And no uncles? No grandfathers?”

“No.”

“So this would seem a little odd, wouldn’t it? Even though it’s a normal expression of affection.”

Nod.

“Do you think it doesn’t feel good to give you a kiss like that?”

No response.

“Let me say that another way. Do you think I’m trying to hurt you?”

“No.”

“Good. Because I’m not. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes when men and women kiss and are… you know, like that with each other. Sometimes people get their hearts broken, right? People sometimes get hurt. That’s how it’s said. Right?” He held her close. She was like a little furnace. He drew her up onto his lap. “Maybe that’s what happened to Sid? Or to your mom, right?”

“When Sid’s cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut up her arms with a fork.”

Lamb made a face. “Because her heart was broken?”

“I think so.”

“Oh, Em. Promise me you’ll never do anything like that.”

“I would never.”

“I know you wouldn’t. You love life too much. It’s partly that love of life that I saw in you that day in the parking lot.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. And I want you to know there are ways we can keep our hearts safe. There are ways we can keep your heart from breaking, and mine.”

“There are?”

He laughed a little in the dark. “Of course there are. And that’s exactly what we’re doing by talking about this. And that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do. Do you understand?” He looked down at her.

“You will. I promise. When you’re twenty and I’m dead and gone and you look back on this night, you are not going to feel heartbroken. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to put your head in my lap and just sit here a little while?”

“Okay.”

“Here you go. Let’s just sit here a minute like this. And look down at your face and see if you look like you have a fever. We’re not going to sleep on this hard floor. We’re just resting together.”

“I’m comfortable.”

“You’re comfortable. No you are not.” He moved his fingers in small circles in her hair, in her scalp.

“That feels good.”

“I know it does. Was it a pretty night out there?”

“I was too sad.”

“Was it even more sad because the night was pretty?”

“Yes.”

“My heart is just like yours. Did you know that?”

“It is?”

“It is.”

“That’s how we knew to go back to the parking lot.”

“That’s right.” He laughed. “That’s right.” They lay still. “Em?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to rest on the bottom bunk awhile? And I can check you for a fever until morning? This floor is killing my old bones.”

She pressed the back of her head against his blue jeans, looking at him, and he lifted her onto his knee and pulled her up. She leaned her head against his shoulder. He kissed the cheek, and kissed the jaw, and kissed her mouth. “Okay?”

She nodded.

He stood up, still holding her, supporting her bottom on his hip and arm. She draped her arms around his neck like a child. He took her into the little bunk room. “Do you want some cool water?” He felt her shrug. “Are you just going to shrug now all the time?”

“Maybe I am.”

“Stubborn girl.”

She shrugged again. And our guy told her it would be his understanding, from here on out, that whenever she shrugged, it would mean she was saying how much she liked him. It would be her way of saying yes.

He set her down. “Are you too warm in those clothes?”

She looked down at her blue jeans and shirt. “Not too.”

“We should at least take off our socks. So we don’t inadvertently plant a grasslands in the sheets. Careful. Those little seeds are sharp.”

They sat beside each other on the bottom bunk and removed their socks. He laid them neatly over the back of the metal chair. “Good,” he said. “Can you stand a minute? I’d like to turn down the bed for you, dear.” He pulled back the blanket and sheet, folding the wool blanket into quarters at the end of the bed, unzipped his sleeping bag wide and laid it over the top, then held it all open for her. “Go on,” he said. “Climb in.”

When they were both in, he pulled her up so her head was on his shoulder, her tiny arm over the great barrel of his chest, and he turned his head down a little to see her face.

“Em. Does this remind you of anything? A movie? A TV show?”

“What?”

“This. Now. This little house, and the shop, and you and me in it, and nothing else around. The things we’re sharing. Did you ever see a TV show like this or a movie or something?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Think hard.”

“I am.”

“Think of all the movies and songs and books you know. Are any of them like this?”

“No.”

“You’re sure? Double sure?”

“Double sure.”

“Isn’t that good news?”

“I guess.”

“Remember when we said if we went back far enough in time, the planet would be flooded with seawater, and we’d have to reinvent the world from scratch?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember we said this time, we’d get it right?”

“I remember.”

“That was just pretend, right? But Em”—he lowered his voice to a whisper—“I think we’re really doing it. Because no one’s ever had this before. Do you understand? No one gets to have this, what we’re having. No one ever has. We’re inventing it.”

“Gary.”

“Yeah.”

“What day is it?”

“A Thursday.”

“What day in October?”

“Do you want to say two more days? We’ll stay two more days?”

“Okay.”

“We can revise as we go.”

“Okay.”

“You’re such an empathetic little body.”

She looked up at him.

“It means you’re good at imagining how other people are feeling.”

“Oh.”

“I wish I could give you this and home with your mother at the same time.”

“Me too.”

“I’ll try to think of a way.”

“For both?”

“You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I know you do.”

They were both up in the night, the girl with a fever, her face burning, Lamb filling her canteen and holding her head and tipping it into her mouth and feeding her broken aspirin. Helping her up and opening the little metal side door so she could piss outside in the dirt. They did not sleep when she was burning up and her clothes hurt her skin and her bones were cold and then her bones were hot and it hurt to breathe. Her eyes were burnt, she said, and dirt was stuck to the insides of her eyelids.

“Sunglasses,” he said. “I should have bought you sunglasses.”

He laid the edge of his hand at the hip of her jeans, his head filled with fire. Dark early morning hour. No crickets, no coyotes, no sound but their breath, their whispering, as if even here they did not want to be overheard.

“Is it better or worse?”

“Better.”

“Should we fold back the blankets?”

“Please.”

He climbed out of bed and rolled everything back to the metal frame at the end.

“When’s the last time anyone held you like this? Or was beside you in bed like this?”

“That day.”

“What day?”

“That day you threw me in your truck.”

“Did I throw you?”

“I hit my head.”

“I’m sorry, Em. Do you forgive me?”

“I forgive you.”

“Who held you then?”

“Mom. When she got home from work.”

“Tell me how it was.”

“I was in bed already.”

“What time was it?”

Shrug.

“No, Em. You have to tell me exactly how it was.” He pushed her by the shoulders a little away from him and looked at her. “Look at my face and tell me the story.”

“It was six or something.”

“Still light out?”

“Yes.”

“You were upset. I’d upset you. Say it. Say: you upset me, Gary.”

“You did.”

“That’s good for me to hear. Tell me. Mom was worried about you? She thought you were sick?”

“I guess.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if I was sick and I said a little.”

“And she sat on the edge of the bed with you?”

“She brought us a snack in bed.”

“What snack?”

“Milk and strawberry toast.”

“That’s a good snack.”

“I know.”

“And she gave you the snack and went off with Jessie?”

“She stayed with me.”

“For a little while?”

“For the whole night.”

“What did Jessie do?”

“TV I guess.”

“You were crying in bed?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’d scared you.”

“And because my friends. They wouldn’t answer when I called. Their moms said they weren’t home. But I knew they were.”

“You were shaken up.”

“I don’t know.”

“But you came to find me the next day?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought things weren’t so good in that apartment.”

“Sometimes they were.”