The Tin Can Tree

2

Joan Pike was twenty-six years old, and had lived in bedrooms all her life. She lived the way a guest would – keeping her property strictly within the walls of her room, hanging her towel and wash-cloth on a bar behind her door. No one asked her to. Her aunt had even said to her, once, that she wished Joan would act more at home here. 'You could at least hang your coat in the downstairs closet,' she said. 'Could you do that much?' And Joan had nodded, and from then on hung her coat with the others. But her towel stayed in her own room, because nobody had mentioned that to her. And she read and sewed sitting on her bed, unless she was expressly invited downstairs.

If they had asked her, point-blank, the way they must have wanted to – if they had asked, 'Why do you have to be invited?' she wouldn't have known the answer. It was what she was used to; that was all. When she was born, her parents were already middle-aged. They weren't sure what they were supposed to do with her; they treated her politely, like a visitor who had dropped in unexpectedly. If she sat with them after supper they tried to make some sort of conversation, or gazed at her uneasily over the tops of their magazines until she retreated to her room. So now, a hundred miles from home and on her own, it felt only natural to be living in another bedroom, although she hadn't planned it that way. She had come here planning just to stay with the Pikes a week or two, until she found a place of her own, and then the children made her change her mind. When Janie Rose's hamster ran away, and Janie Rose stayed an hour in the bathroom shouting that it wasn't important, brushing her teeth over and over with scalding hot water that she didn't even notice and crying into the sink, Joan was the only one who could make her come away. After that the Pikes asked if she would like to live with them, and she said yes without appearing to think twice. This bedroom wasn't like the first one, after all. Here there was always something going on, and a full family around the supper table. When she went walking with Simon and Janie Rose, she pretended to herself that they were hers. She played senseless games with them, toasting marshmallows over candles, and poking spiders in their webs to try and make them spin their names. For four years she had lived that way. Nine months of each year she worked as a secretary for the school principal, giving some of her salary to the Pikes and sending some home to her parents, and in the summers she worked part-time in the tobacco fields. In the evening she sat with James, every evening talking of the same things and never moving forwards or backwards with him, and she spent a little time with the Pikes. But she still lived in her bedroom; she still waited for an invitation, and when any of the Pikes wanted to see her they had to go knock on her door.

Today no one knocked. Her aunt and uncle had gone straight to their room after the funeral and were there now – the sound of Mr Pike's murmuring voice could just be heard – and Simon was alone in his room and seemed to be planning to stay there. That left Joan with a piece of time she knew would be her own, with no one interrupting, and at first she thought it was what she needed. She could sit down and get things sorted in her mind, and maybe catch some sleep later on. There was still that heavy feeling behind her eyes from the long aching wait in the hospital. But when she tried sorting her thoughts she found it was more than she could do just now, and then when she tried sleeping her eyes wouldn't shut. She lay on top of her bedspread, with her shoes off but her dress still on in case her aunt should call her, and her eyes kept wandering around the bland, motel-like cleanness of her room. It seemed every muscle she owned was tensed up and waiting to be called on. If she were alone in the house she would have gone down and scrubbed the kitchen floor, maybe, or at least had a long hot bath. But who knew whether her aunt would approve of that on a day like today?

When she finally thought of what she could do, she sat up quickly and frowned at herself for not thinking of it sooner. It was the one thing her aunt had asked of her all day: she had been sitting at the breakfast table, digging wells in her oatmeal and staring out into the back yard, and suddenly she had caught sight of Janie Rose's draggled blue crinoline flapping on the clothesline. 'Take everything away, Joan,' she said.

'What?'

'Take Janie's things away. Put them somewhere.'

'All right,' said Joan, but she was hunting raisins for Simon's oatmeal and hadn't really been thinking about it. Now she wasn't sure how much time she would have; Simon might come in at any moment. She wanted to do the job alone, keeping it from the rest of the family, because different things could bother different people. With her it had been Janie Rose's pocket collection – modelling clay and an Italian stamp and a handful of peas hidden away during supper, sitting on the edge of the tub where they had been dumped before a bath five nights ago. She didn't think any more could bother her now.

She opened her door and looked out into the hallway. No one was there. Behind the Pike's door the mumbling voice still rambled on, faltering in places and then starting up again, louder than before. When Joan came out into the hall in her stocking feet, a floorboard creaked beneath her and the murmuring stopped altogether, but then her uncle picked up the thread and continued. Joan reached the steps and descended them on tiptoe, and when she got to the bottom she closed the door behind her and let out her breath.

Janie Rose's room opened off the kitchen hall. It had had to be built on for her especially, because the Pikes had never planned for more than one child and the room that was now Joan's had been taken up by a paying lodger at the time. Janie didn't like her room. She liked Simon's, with the porthole window in the closet and the cowboy wallpaper. When Simon wasn't around she did all her playing there, so that her own room looked almost unlived in. On her hastily made-up bed sat an eyeless teddy bear, tossed against the pillow the way Janie Rose must have seen it in her mother's copies of House and Garden. And her toys were neatly lined on the bookshelves, but wisps of clothes stuck out of dresser drawers and her closet was one heap of things she had kicked her way out of at night and thrown on the floor.

It was the closet Joan began with. She pulled back the flaps of a cardboard box from the hall and then began to fold the dresses up and lay them away. There weren't many. Janie Rose hated dresses, although her mother had dreams of outfitting her in organdy and dotted swiss. The dresses Janie chose for herself were red plaid, with the sashes starting to come off at the seams because she had a tendency to tie them too tightly. Then there were stacks of overalls, most of them home-sewn and inherited from Simon, and at the very bottom were the few things her mother had bought when Janie Rose wasn't along – pink and white things, with 'Little Miss Chubby' labels sewn into the necklines. While she was folding those Joan had a sudden clear picture of Janie Rose on Sunday mornings, struggling into them. She dressed backwards. She refused to pull dresses over her head, for fear of becoming invisible. Instead she pulled them up over her feet, tugging and grunting and complaining all the way, and sometimes ripping the seams of dresses that weren't meant to be put on that way. She had a trick that she did with her petticoat, so that it wouldn't slide up with her dress -she bent over and tucked it between her knees, and while she was doing all this struggling with the dress she would be standing there knock-kneed and pigeon-toed, locking the petticoat in place and usually crying. She cried a lot, but quietly.

When Joan had finished with the closet, the cardboard box was only two-thirds full. The closet was bare, and the floor had just a few hangers and bubble gum wrappers scattered over it. It looked worse that way. She reached over and slammed the closet door shut, and then she dragged the box over to the dresser and began on that.

Upstairs, a door slammed. She straightened up and listened, hoping it was only the wind, but there were Simon's footsteps down the stairs. For a minute she was afraid he was coming to find her, but then she heard the soft puffing sound that the leather chair made when someone sat in it, and she relaxed. He must not want to be with people right now. She pushed her hair off her face and opened the next dresser drawer.

Janie Rose had more sachet bags than Joan thought existed. They cluttered every drawer, one smell mixed with another – lemon verbena and lavender and rose petals. And tossed in here and there were her mother's old perfume bottles with the tops off, adding their own heavy scent, so that Joan became confused and couldn't tell one smell from another any more. She wondered why Janie Rose, wearing all this fragrant underwear, had still smelled only of Ivory soap and Crayolas. Especially when she wore so much underwear. On Janie Rose's bad days, when she thought things were going against her or she was frightened, she would pile on layer upon layer of undershirts and panties. Her jeans could hardly be squeezed on top of it all, and if she wore overalls the straps would be strained to the breaking point over drawersful of undershirts. Sometimes her mother made her take them off again and sometimes she didn't ('She's just hopeless,' she would say, and give up), but usually, if the day turned better, Janie peeled off a few layers of her own accord. On the evenings of her bad days, when Simon came in for supper, he had a habit of reaching across the table and pinching her overall strap to see how many other straps lay beneath it. It was his way of asking how she was doing. If Janie was feeling all right by then she would just giggle at him, and he would laugh. But other days she jumped when he touched her and hunched up her shoulders, and then Simon would say nothing and fix all his attention on supper.

Out in the parlour now Joan heard the squeaking of leather as Simon rose, and the sound of his shoes across the scatter rug. She stopped in the act of closing the box and waited, silently; his footsteps came closer, and then he appeared in the doorway. 'Hey, Joan,' he said. There was something white on his face.

'Hey.'

He looked at the cardboard boxes without changing expression, and then he went over to the bed and sat down, picking up the teddy bear in one hand. 'Hey, Ernest,' he said. He laid Ernest face down across his lap, circling the bear's neck with one hand, and leaned forward to watch Joan.

'I'm packing things away,' she told him.

'Well, I see you are.'

She folded the flaps of the box down, one corner over another so as to lock them, and then stood up and pushed the box toward the closet. 'Some of your things're on the shelves there,' she told Simon while she was opening the closet door. The box grated across the hangers on the floor. 'You better take out what's yours, before I pack it away.'

'None of it is,' said Simon, without looking at the shelves.

'Some is. That xylophone.'

'I don't play that any more. Don't you know I've stopped playing with that kind of thing?'

'All right, 'Joan said.

'I gave it for keeps.'

'All right.'

'Unliving things last much longer than living.'

"That's true,' Joan said. She chose an armload of things from the shelves – dolls, still shining and unused, a pack of candy Chesterfields, and an unbreakable yellow plastic record ordered off a cereal box. She dumped them helter-skelter into a second box and returned for another armload. 'James give you a good lunch?' she asked.

'No.'

'What was wrong with it?'

'Nothing,' said Simon. "There just wasn't any. Because I didn't eat it.'

'Oh.'

'If I had eaten it, it would have been a pizza.'

'I see.'

She dumped another armload in the box. It was half full now, and junky-looking, with the arms of dolls and the wheels of cars tangled together.

'I better make you a sandwich,' she said finally.

'Naw.'

'You want an apple?'

'Naw.'

He crossed over to where she was standing and laid the bear gently on top of the other things. 'James has got this photograph,' he said, and went back to sit on the bed. "That Ansel, boy.'

'What about him?'

'I just hate him. I hate him.'

When it looked as if he weren't going to say any more, Joan began removing the last few things from the shelf. Every now and then she looked Simon's way, but he sat very quiet with his back against the wall and his face expressionless. Finally she said, 'Well, Ansel has his days. You know that.' But Simon remained silent.

The room was bare now; all that remained were the things on the clothesline. She pushed the second box into the closet and then said, 'I'm going out back a minute. After that I'll fix you a sandwich.' Simon stood up to follow her. 'I'm only going for a minute,' she said, but Simon came with her anyway, and they went down the hall and through the kitchen and out the back screen door.

It was hot and windy outside, with the acres of grass behind the house rumpling and tangling together. The few things on the line – Simon's bathing suit and Janie Rose's crinoline and Sunday blouse – were being whipped about by the wind so that they made little cracking sounds. While Joan unpinned Janie's things, Simon wandered _ nearby snapping the heads off the weeds.

'Simon,' she called to him, 'what kind of sandwich you want?'

'I ain't hungry.'

'I'll just make you a little one. And go call your mama and daddy; they have to eat too.'

'I wish you would.'

'Come on, Simon.'

He shrugged and started toward the house, still walking aimlessly and kicking at things. 'All right,' he said. 'But I'll tell them it's your fault I came.'

'They won't mind you coming.'

'You think not?'

He banged the screen door behind him. After he was gone Joan stood in the yard awhile, clutching Janie's things against her stomach, feeling the dampness soak into her stocking feet. She wished she could just walk off. If it were't for Simon, she would; she would go find some place to sit alone and think things out. But her feet were growing cold, and there were sandwiches to make; she shook her hair off her forehead and started back toward the house. The closer to the house she came the quieter the wind sounded, and when she stepped back into the kitchen there was a sudden silence in her ears that felt odd.

She put the things from the clothesline into the closet, and then she returned to the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator while she planned a meal. The room was so cluttered it made thinking difficult. Small objects lay here and there, gathering dust because no one had ever found a place for them. The kitchen windows were curtainless, and littered with lost buttons and ripening tomatoes. And the wall behind the stove was covered with twenty or thirty drawings, scotch-taped so closely together they might have been wallpaper. Most of them were Simon's – soldiers and knights and masked men with guns. His mother thought he might be an artist someday. Scattered among them were Janie Rose's drawings, all of the same lollipop-shaped tree with hundreds of tiny round apples on it. She said it was the tree out back, but that was only a tiny scrubby tree with no leaves; it had never borne fruit and wouldn't have borne apples even if it had, since it was some other kind of tree. Once her mother said, 'Janie, honey, why don't you draw something else?_ and Janie had run out crying and wouldn't come down from the attic. But the next day she had said she would draw something different. She came into the kitchen where they were all sitting, carrying a box of broken crayons and a huge sheet of that yellow pulpy paper she always used. 'What else is there to draw?" she asked, and her mother said, 'Well, a house, for instance. Other children draw houses.' Then they all hung over her, and she drew a straight up-and-down line and a window, and then a green circle above it with lots of red apples on it. Everybody sat back and looked at her; she had drawn an apple tree with a window in it. 'Oh, my,' she said apologetically, and then she smiled and began filling in the circle with green crayon. After that she never tried houses again. She laboured away at apple trees, and signed them, 'Miss J. R. Pike' in the corner, in large purple letters. Simon never signed his, but that was because his mother said she would recognize his style anywhere in the world.

When Simon came downstairs again he had changed into his boots; he was trying to make the floor shake when he walked. 'Daddy's coming and Mama ain't,' he said. 'She ain't hungry.'

'Did you ask if she wants coffee?'

'She didn't give me a chance. She said go on and let her rest.'

'Well, run up again and ask her.'

'No, sir,' Simon said. He sat down firmly in one of the chairs.

'Just run up, Simon -'

'I won't do it,' he said.

Joan thought a minute, and then she said, 'Well, all right.' She reached out to smooth his hair down and for a minute he let her, but just barely, and then shrugged her hand away.

'Daddy wants just a Co-Cola,' he told her.

'He's got to have more than that.'

'No. He said – Hey, Joan.'

'What.'

'I got an idea.'

'All right.'

'Why not you and me go out and eat. You like that?'

'We can't,' Joan said.

'We could go to that place with the chicken.'

'We have to stay home, Simon.'

'I would pay for it.'

'No,' Joan said, and she touched one upright piece of his hair again. 'Are you the one that doesn't like using other people's forks? That makes twice in two days you've had that idea.'

'Well, anyway,' said Simon. But he must have been expecting her to say no; he sat back quietly and began drumming his fingers on the table. Above them was the sound of Mr Pike's footsteps, crossing the hall and beginning to descend the stairs, and Joan remembered why she was in the kitchen and went back to the refrigerator. She opened the door and stared inside, at shelves packed tightly with other people's casseroles. At the kitchen doorway her uncle said, 'I only want a Coke, Joan,' and came to stand beside her, bending down to peer at the lower shelves.

'You have to eat something solid,' Joan told him.

'I can't. He straightened up and rubbed his forehead. He was a lean man, all bones and tough brown skin. Ordinarily he did construction work, but for the month of July he had been laid off and was spending his time the way Joan did, helping Mr Terry get his tobacco in. Years of working outdoors had made his face look stained with walnut juice, and his eyes were squinted from force of habit even when he wasn't in the sun. They were narrow brown slits in his face, the same shade as Simon's, and they were directed now at Joan while he waited for her to speak.

'There's a chicken salad here from Mrs Belts,' said Joan.

'No, thank you.'

'The kind you like, with pimento.'

'No.'

'Now, eat a little something,' she said. 'I could be perking coffee for you to take Aunt Lou, if you'd wait a minute.'

'Oh, well, 'he said.

He sat down awkwardly, across from Simon, giving his Sunday pants a jerk at each knee to save the crease. 'How you been getting along?' he asked Simon.

'Okay.'

'Not giving Joan any trouble.'

'No, sir.'

'He's been just fine,' said Joan. She set the salad out and laid three plates on the table. Her uncle studied his own plate seriously, hunching his shoulders over it and working his hands together.

'I'm glad to hear it,' he said finally. When Joan looked over at him he said, 'About Simon, I mean. James and Ansel feed you okay, boy?'

'No, sir.'

'Well. Joan, Dr Kill left a prescription for your aunt but I don't see how I can go into town and leave her. I wonder, would you mind too much if-'

'I'll see to it after we eat,' Joan said.

He accepted his chicken salad wordlessly, keeping his eyes on Joan's hands as she dished his share out. When she had passed on to the next plate, he said, 'Thank you,' and the words came out hoarse so that he had to clear his throat. 'Thank you,' he said again. Even then his voice was muffled-sounding. In the last three days he had been talking steadily, always mumbling something into Mrs Pike's ear to keep her going. It was probably the most he had talked in a lifetime. Ordinarily he sat quiet and listened, with something like awe, while his wife rattled on; he seemed perpetually surprised and a little proud that she should have so much to say.

When Joan had sat down herself, after filling the others' plates and passing out forks, she said, 'Eat, now.' She looked at the other two, but neither of them picked up his fork. 'Come on,' she said, and then Simon sighed and tucked his paper napkin into his collar with a rustling sound.

'This feels like Sunday-night supper,' he said.

'It does.'

'Not like afternoon. Why're we eating in the afternoon? What the day feels like, is Wednesday.'

'Wednesday?'

'Feels like Wednesday.'

'Why does it feel like-?'

'She blames it on herself,' said Mr Pike.

'What?'

'It breaks my heart. She keeps saying how she was hemming Miss Brook's basic black at the time – I never have liked that Miss Brook – and Janie Rose comes up and says, "Mama," she says, "I'm going off to -"and Lou just never did hear where. Miss Brook was going on about her bunions. "Lou," I told her, I said, "Lou, I don't think that would have -"but Lou says that's how it come to happen. She never let Janie Rose play with those Marsh girls. Never would have let her go, if she had known. But she was-'

'Never let her ride no tractors, either,' said Simon. 'Shakes a girl's insides all up.'

'Hush,' Joan told him. 'Both of you. There's not even a dent made in that chicken salad.'

Her uncle picked his fork up and then leaned across the table toward her. 'She blames herself,' he said.

'I know.'

'She keeps-'

'Eat, Uncle Roy.'

He began eating. His fork made steady little clinking sounds on the plate, and he chewed rapidly with the crunchy sound of celery filling the silence. When he was done, Joan put another spoonful of salad on his plate and he kept on without pause, never looking up, making his way doggedly through the heap of food. Simon stopped eating and stared at him, until Joan gave his wrist a tap with her finger. Then he started eating again, but he kept his eyes on his father. When Mr Pike reached for the bowl and dished himself another helping, still crunching on his last mouthful, chewing without breathing, like a thirsty man drinking water, Simon looked over at Joan with his eyes round above a forkful of food and she frowned at him and cleared her throat.

'Um, Mrs Hammond phoned today,' she said. 'She's a very cheering person, Uncle Roy; maybe Aunt Lou could talk to her later on. I told her to call back in a day or -'

'Remember Janie Rose?' Simon asked.

His father stopped chewing. 'Remember what?' he said.

'Remember how she did on the telephone? Never answering "Hello," but saying, "I am listening to WKKJ, the all-day swinging station," in case WKKJ was ever to call and give her the jackpot for answering that way. Only you know, WKKJ never did call -'

'Simon, I mean it,' Joan said.

'Lou is breaking my heart,' said Mr Pike.

'Wouldn't you feel funny, if you was to call someone that answered like that? "I am listening to – "'

'It wasn't her fault,' Mr Pike said. 'Janie never asked for no special attention, like. She just kind of -'

'God in heaven,' Joan said.

The doorbell rang. It made a sharp, burring noise, and Joan stood up so quickly to answer it that her chair fell over backwards behind her. She let it stay. She escaped from the kitchen and crossed the parlour floor, smoothing her skirt down in front of her, making herself walk slowly. Behind the screen, standing close together with their faces side by side and peering in, were the Potter sisters from next door. They stepped backwards simultaneously so that Joan could swing the door open, and then Miss Faye entered first with Miss Lucy close behind her.

'We only stopped by for a minute,' said Miss Faye. 'We wanted to bring your supper.'

'Well, come on in,' Joan said. 'Really, do. Come out to the kitchen, why don't you.'

'Oh, I don't think-'

'No, I mean it.' She took Miss Faye by one plump wrist, almost pulling her. 'You don't know how glad I am to see you,' she said.

'Well, if you really think-'

They walked on tiptoe, bearing their covered dishes before them like sacred offerings. When they reached the kitchen door, Mr Pike stood up to greet them and his chair fell backwards too, so that the room with its overturned furniture looked stricken. 'Why, Miss, um, Miss Lucy' he said. 'And Miss Faye. I declare. Come in and have a -' and he bent down and pulled the chairs up by their backs, both at the same time. 'Sit down, why don't you,' he said.

Joan drew up the chair from beside the stove, and Miss Lucy sat down in it with a sigh while Miss Faye went to sit beside Simon. 'We only mean to stay a minute,' said Miss Lucy. She plopped the bowl she was carrying down on the table in front of her and then sat back, sliding her purse strap to a more comfortable position on her wrist. The Potter sisters always carried handbags and wore hats and gloves, even if they were going next door. They were small, round women, in their early sixties probably, and for as long as Joan had known them they had had only one aim in life: they wanted to have swarms of neighbourhood children clamouring at their door for cookies, gathering in their yard at the first smell of cinnamon buns. And although no one came ('Children nowadays prefer to buy Nutty Buddies,' Miss Faye said), they still went on baking, eating the cookies themselves, growing fat together and comparing notes on their identical heart conditions. It was those heart conditions that Miss Faye was discussing right now. She was saying, 'Now, you and Lou know, Roy, how much we wish we could have climbed that hill today. If there was any way, the merest logging trail, we would've got there. But as it was, it would just have meant more tragedy. You know that.'

And Mr Pike was saying, 'Well, I know, I know,' and nodding gently without seeming to be listening. There was chicken salad on his chin, which meant that both the Potters kept staring tactfully down at their gloves instead of looking at him. Joan passed him a paper napkin, but he ignored it; he sat forward on his chair and said, 'It surely was nice of you to come. Nice to bring us supper.'

'It's the least we could do,' said Miss Lucy. She looked around her, toward the kitchen door, and then lowered her voice. Tell me,' she whispered. 'How is she? How's Lou?'

'It breaks my heart,' said Mr Pike.

'Oh, my,'

'Not a thing I can do, seems like. She just sits. If she would stop all this blaming herself-'

They all do that,' said Miss Faye.

'She said Janie was the one she never paid no mind to.'

'Will you listen to that.'

'Never gave her a fair share.'

'If it's not one reason it's another,' Miss Lucy said. I’ve seen that happen plenty of times.'

'Maybe if you talked to her,' said Mr Pike. He pushed his plate away and straightened up. 'You think you could just run up there a minute?'

'Well, not run, no, but-'

'I didn't meant that,' he said. 'No, you can take the stairs as slow as you want to. But if you two would talk to her a minute, so long as you don't mind -'

'Why, we don't mind a bit,' said Miss Faye. 'We'd be proud.' She reached up to set her flowered hat straighter, as if she might like to put an extra hat on top of the first one for such a special visit. And Miss Lucy pulled gloves to perfect smoothness, and then folded her hands tightly over her purse.

'I just don't like to trouble you,' Mr Pike said.

'You stop that, Roy Pike.'

They rose simultaneously, with their backs very straight. But even making the trip across the kitchen they walked slowly, preparing themselves for the stairs. 'Be careful,' Joan told them. 'Just see they don't get out of breath, Uncle Roy.'

'I will.'

But Simon was frowning as he watched them leave. 'Hey, Joan,' he said.

'Hmmm?'

'When they go up to bed at night, it takes them half an hour. They take two steps and then rest and talk; they bring their knitting along.'

'Well, that's kind of silly, 'said Joan.

'Could they crumple up and die on our stairs?'

'No, they could not,' she said. 'It would take more than that.'"

'How do you know?'

'I heard Dr Kitt tell them so. They just shouldn't get too out of breath, is all, or run in any marathons. He said -'

'I got an idea,' Simon said.

'What?'

'Listen.' He stood up from his place at the table and came around to face her, with his hands hitched through his belt loops. 'How about us going to a movie,' he said. 'That Tarzan movie.'

'We're not supposed to.'

'Well, I got to get out,' he said.

She looked down at him, considering. His face had a thin, stretched look; patches of flour still clung to it like some sort of sad clown makeup and his hair stuck up in wiry tangles. 'Well, I do have to get Aunt Lou's prescription,' she said. 'Would you comb your hair first?'

'Sure.'

'All right, we'll go.'

'Right now?'

'If you want to.’

He nodded, but with his face still wearing that strained look, and turned to go upstairs and then turned back again. 'I'll wash downstairs,' he said.

'There's no soap here.'

'I don't care.'

He turned on the water in the kitchen sink and splashed his face, and then he reached spluttering for the dishtowel. 'My allowance money's all the way upstairs,' he said. 'I'll pay you back tomorrow, if you'll lend me the money.'

'All right.'

She went into the living room, with Simon following, and handed him a comb from her pocket-book. While he was combing his hair she went upstairs for her shoes. Mrs Pike's door was open now. She was lying on her bed, with her head propped up on two pillow s and the sisters beside her talking steadily, and when Joan walked past, her aunt followed her with her soft blue eyes but only vaguely, as if she weren't seeing her, so Joan didn't stop in to say anything. She put on her shoes and picked up a scarf and went downstairs, where Simon was waiting with his hand on the newel post and his face strained upward.

'What're they doing?' he asked her.

'I don't know.'

'Are they crying?'

'I don't think so.'

'Well. I would've gone upstairs,' he said. 'You know.'

'I know.'

'Did you think I wouldn't?'

'No.' She sighed suddenly, looking back toward the stairs. ‘I don't know how to comfort people,' she said.

'Well.'

They went out the front door, across the porch, and down the wooden steps. It was beginning to get cool outside. Joan could hear tree frogs piping far away, and the wind had died down enough so that the sound of cars on the east highway reached her ears. She clasped her hands behind her back and followed Simon, cutting across the road and through the field toward town.

'Remember I've got heels on,' she called.

'I remember.'

'Remember that makes it hard walking.'

He slowed down and waited for her, walking backwards. Behind him and all around him the field stretched wide and golden, with bits of tall yellow flowers stirring and glimmering like spangles in the sunlight. And when Joan came up even with him, so that he turned and walked forward again by her side, she could look down and see how his hair, bleached lighter on top, took on a varnished look out here and the little line of fuzz down the back of his neck had turned shiny and golden like the field he was walking in. 'Right about here… 'he said, but the wind started up just then and blew his words away.

'What?' she asked.

'Right about here is where I lost that ball. Will you keep a lookout for it?'

'I will.'

'Do you reckon I'll ever find it?'

'No.'

'I don't either,' Simon said.

But they walked slowly anyway, keeping their eyes on the ground, kicking at clumps of wild wheat to see what might turn up.