Hi.
Kathy got some smiles, some waves. "Hi," Ellen said. "You're late. I figured we'd see you with the thaw if you were still around."
"Work, work," Kathy said. "First it was days, then before I knew it, it was weeks." She grabbed Hero and hugged him, kissed him. "You miss me?" He squirmed loose and hurried around Ellen and pretended Kathy wasn't there.
"He's gone shy," Ellen said. "It'll take him a couple of days."
"Aw, Hero." Kathy had lived at the Treehouse last summer and she'd grown fond of him. He ignored her.
"Bookwork'l" Ellen said.
"Yeah, I'm kind of into it, I guess. For awhile anyway." Ellen shrugged.
"Multiple are the paths."
"Ananda's huge," Kathy said.
Ellen picked Ananda up. "Isn't she? Nine months last week. Twenty pounds already." Ananda rooted for a breast. "Uh-uh, you ate already." Ellen twirled a twig to distract her. The baby took it and put an end in her mouth. "Kathy, this is Pancho. Pancho, Kathy."
I'ancho took the flute from his mouth. He looked at Kathy several moments and said, "Hey."
"Right," Kathy said.
He fished a joint from his pocket. "Smoke?"
"Later."
Pancho went back to his flute.
"You going to be here this summer?" Ellen said.
"I think so, if there's room."
"Good. But you better tell Bill-we got two already, we can only handle one or two more."
"Okay."
Ananda began to fret. Ellen lay back on the grass and held her aloft, sang her a nonsense song and bounced her up and down. Ananda's dangling feet grazed the wild expanse of pubic hair that grew up Ellen's belly to lap with tendrils at her navel. Ed thrust the hammer into his belt and came down from the roof. He gave Kathy a big squeeze, lifting her from her feet, and kissed her. "How's it going, babe?" Ed had been Kathy's old man through most of last summer. Then Ed and Josie had got together, and Kathy paired off with a thin, speedy kid from California.
"Pretty good. Did you get through the winter all right?" "Not bad."
Ed walked her over to the goat pen. "We got snowed in a couple of times and the vegetables ran pretty low, but we had a better time of it than we've had before. Things are coming together."
Three of the does had given birth, one to twins. Everyone was pleased with the bonanza and they'd changed the billy goat's name from Jerk to James Bond. The kids were cute. One tried to suckle on Kathy's fingers and it tickled.
Ed took her into the house. Billy Harris and Ed and another guy who hadn't stayed long had built the big highceilinged structure around a huge live oak. The trunk rose up from the center of the floor, disappeared through the ceiling, and the broad branches sheltered the roof from the summer sun.
The joists and rafters were split logs, the walls rough cut planking from a local mill. Windows and odds and ends had been scavenged from dumps and appropriated from construction sites. They drew water from a hand pump This winter they'd built sleeping balconies, which cut down the wood they had to burn for heat. There was an outhouse around back, a tool and equipment shed, and a dugout storage cellar. They raised chickens, goats and rabbits and shot a deer or two in the winter. The permanent population varied between eight and ten, there was always a transient or two, and a few more would come to stay while the good weather lasted. When necessary, one of the men would hire out as a carpenter or housepainter a few weeks, or a girl would go to work waitressing. It was a good place and a good way to live.
Billy Harris said sure, she was welcome for the summer if she wanted, just let him know definitely sometime in the next week or two.
Kathy found Spirit chewing on a bone. He was a black and white dog of medium size with long silky fur and a feathery tail. Unlike Hero, he hadn't gone shy. He remembered Kathy-at least she thought he did; you could never tell, he was an indiscriminately affectionate slob-and he pounded his tail on the ground and licked her face. Spirit was around more often than not, but came and went as he pleased. He was fed table scraps, but not much, because there was little wastage at the Treehouse, but more because everyone was expected to pull his own weight. So he foraged in the woods for most of what he ate, gone for a day or a week.
At sunset some of them went to a nearby bluff that overlooked the valley and sat cross legged with the backs of their wrists atop their knees and their thumbs touching their forefingers, and meditated until the light failed. They went back to the house, where the kerosene lamps were lit and Josie was cooking dinner, and passed around a little Lebanese red in a pipe, and Kathy sighed, as she sometimes did when all the naggling vicissitudes of life slipped away from her and she went floating up into peace and happiness, telling herself it should be this way for ever and ever and ever.
Ursula told him to come after the children were in bed, she didn't want him to see them. Despising himself, he almost agreed. But then anger welled up and he said, "No, I want to put my sons to sleep."
"You've done enough already," she said.
"I'll be there at seven, after dinner."
"You'll find the door locked."
"Don't fuck around, Ursula. I am going to see my children."
She greeted him icily. Pulled into a bun, her hair lay flat against her temples and brought the sharp planes of her face into even greater relief.
Her mouth was thin, like a cutting edge. She let him in, then absented herself to the kitchen while he talked with the children and put them to bed. Jeff was still badly shaken. His face was swathed in bandaging and, five days later, he was still under sedation. He didn't want to play any games. Bauer read to him. Jeff was usually bouncy and garrulous before bed, but he sat quietly, hunched in a corner hugging his pillow and watching Bauer intently, as if he feared some violence from him, and Bauer's heart broke.
Ursula was paging through a magazine in the living room.
"We should talk," Bauer said.
"In the kitchen. I don't want them to hear us and get upset."
She poured herself a cup of coffee. Bauer had to ask for one for himself.
"You really did it this time," she said. "You let that beast tear your son's face apart. My baby's face. He wakes up screaming. I hold him, I rock him, and he doesn't know where he is. He screams "Mommy, don't let him!
Stop him, Mommy!" I could kill you, Alex."
"Cut it out. We both love him."
"Don't use plurals-you've lost your right."
"First, Orph bit Jeff, I didn't. Second, he's the one in pain, not you or me, so stop getting off on your maternal number. You didn't do either of them a damn bit of good with that scene you pulled in the hospital."
"Jesus, you're incredible. Your dog nearly kills my child, and somehow I'm responsible."
"The dog didn't "nearly kill' him. He bit him, Ursula. Once. If he'd really attacked it would have been a lot worse."
She curled her lip with ugliness. "Somehow, I fail to feel appreciative."
"Jeff was trying to get Orph to play with a stick. The dog was trying to get away. Jeff hit him in the eye. It was an accident. The dog responded instinctively. It did not follow with an attack."
He didn't tell her how precarious it had been, how close — he'd known it in his guts-the dog had come to a full assault. Against Jeff, against Michael, even him. He'd wakened from nightmares himself.
"Now it's Jeff's fault. No, Alex. It's not mine, it's not Jeff's, it's not even primarily that monster's. It's yours. Because you harbored a creature like that-a dangerous wild thing that should have been destroyed or at least locked in a cage where it couldn't hurt anyone. But you kept it, against my wishes, against my desires, and you made no effort to control it, you let it run free, you wouldn't even put it away when your own children visited. It's your fault, Alex. You did this. I have an appointment with a lawyer next week. I can no longer entrust you with the children's welfare. I won't stop you from seeing them-not yet, anyway-but you're going to do it here, in this house, under my supervision."