“What did you learn?”
He turned back. Their foreheads touched. Their bodies made a diamond. “As you can see, I don’t know much. You are always asking questions to which I have no answers. By the way, did you always ask so many questions?”
When he began to talk she found that she could not hear his words for listening to the way he said them. She cast about for his drift. Was he saying the words for the words themselves, for what they meant, or for what they could do to her? There was something about the way he talked that reminded her of her own rehearsed sentences. Was she a jury he was addressing? Though he hardly touched her, his words seemed to flow across all parts of her body. Were they meant to? A pleasure she had never known before bloomed deep in her body. Was this a way of making love?
He was using words like “my shameful secret of success as a lawyer,” “phony,” “radar,” “our new language,” “this gift of yours and mine,” “ours” (this was her favorite), “being above things,” “not being able to get back down to things” (!), “how to reenter the world” (?), “by God?” “by her?” (!!!!!), “your forgetting and my remembering,” “Sutter,” “Sutter was right,” “Sutter was wrong,” “Sutter Vaught.”
“My Uncle Sutter? I remember him.”
“You do?”
“What about him?”
“Nothing much.”
“Did you know him?”
“Yes.”
“Was he crazy and no good like they said?”
“No. What happened to your sister Val?”
“She became a nun.”
“I know that. Is she still a nun?”
“Yes. The last I heard, which was two or five years ago.”
“Two or five. I see. Where is she, still in South Alabama?”
“No, she’s not there.”
“Where is she?” He was watching her closely.
“She’s teaching at a parochial school at Pass Christian on the Gulf Coast. The school is run by the Little Eucharistic Sisters of St. Dominic.”
He was silent for a long time. He seemed to be watching the rain. He put his hand in the small of her back. Oh my, she thought. Lightning flickered. At last he smiled in the lightning.
“What?” she said.
“You remembered it,” he said.
“What?”
“That outrageous name. The Little Sisters of what?”
“The Little Eucharistic Sisters of St. Dominic.” She clapped her hands. “I did. I remember all about Val. She came to see me when I first got sick. In her old black nun clothes. She put her hands on my head and told me I was going to be fine.”
“She was right.”
“Maybe. No, not maybe. I’m fine. You feel so good. Me too. The good is all over me, starting with my back. Now I understand how the two work together.”
“What two?”
“The it and the doing, the noun and the verb, sweet sweet love and a putting it to you, loving and hating, you and I.”
He laughed. “You do, don’t you? What happens to the two?”
“They become one but not in the sappy way of the saying?”
“What way, then?”
“One plus one equals one and oh boy almond joy.”
He was laughing. “You’re Sutter turned happy.”
“I want you to be my guardian,” she said. Even though he was not touching her, his words were a kind of touching. Did he intend them so? When he didn’t answer, she went back over his words for the sense of them. “Will you be my guardian?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you go down in the cave?” Now his hand was in the small of her back again, with a light firm pressure as if they were dancing.
“What?” he said, knitting his brows as if he were trying to remember something.
“I do that,” she said, “I go round and down to get down to myself.”
“I went down and around to get out of myself.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. Curious. Now that your memory is better, mine is. . Anyhow, that’s over and done with. The future is what concerns us.”
“You seem different. Before, when you climbed through the fence and I saw you, you were standing still a long time as if you were listening. Now you seem to know what to do. Was it the cave?”
“The cave,” he said. She could hardly hear him over the rising din of the storm. Lightning forked directly overhead and a sharp crack came hard upon it. The dog, discomfited and frowning, got up and walked around stiff-legged. It was an electrical storm. Soon the lightning was almost continuous, ripping and cracking in the woods around them. Facets of glass flashed blue and white. It was like living inside a diamond. He seemed not to notice her or the storm. His eyes were open and unblinking. The hand behind his head was open, the middle finger touched her shoulder, which she bent close to him, still warming him, now a touch, now a jab, but he could have been poking his own knee. The finger moved as if it were conducting music she couldn’t hear. Nor could she hear what he said in the racket. He was talking in a low voice. She strained against him. Was he talking to her?
“The fence. . the cave. .” His voice seemed to be inside her head.
The finger stopped touching and the hand opened wide, palm up, like a man shrugging. The lightning was getting louder and she was thinking, is it good or bad that the greenhouse has a metal frame? Perhaps good what with the finials sticking up like lightning rods when crackOW it hit. A ball of light rolled toward them down the center aisle of the greenhouse as lazily as a ball of yarn. The dog, lip hung on his tooth, eyed it in outrage and walked stiffly away. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Let’s—” And hushed because he wasn’t listening.
He held her close. Again as her body came against him, she felt her eyes smiling and going away. Ha, she said to herself, maybe he didn’t find what he was looking for but I did. Ha. Maybe I ‘m nuts and he’s not but I know now what I want. Ha. Kelso, guess what. I did it like you said. I broke out and found my place and “fell in love” and inherited a million dollars. Maybe sixty million, and I don’t care if it’s sixty cents. Guess what. I am in love. Ah ha, so this is what it is, this “being in love.” This is what I want. This him. Him. The money is nice but love is above. Yes yes. Kelso honey, I’m coming back for you. You are going to help me raise hydroponic beans.
Lightning struck again. The glass house glittered like a diamond trapping light. Jesus, she thought, doesn’t he know we could get killed? But he was humming a tune — the Trout? — and keeping time with his finger on her shoulder.
The lightning was going away. “What’s going to happen now?” she asked him.
“Now? I’m going home now.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“What is expected of me. Take care of people who need taking care of. I have to see how my daughter is. I have an obligation to her. I have not been a good father. Then we’ll see.
“Am I one of those people you’re going to take care of?”
“Yes.” He sat up. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too.” Juices spurted in her mouth. “I bought some steaks.”
He didn’t seem surprised. She put her marine jacket on. He lay quietly, watching her while she cooked. She didn’t mind feeling his eyes on her back and her bare legs. She went outside, to get the beer. It didn’t matter that it was cold and raining and she was barefoot.
The steaks were good. But he ate absently, as if they were in a restaurant and the steaks were no more or less than he expected. The rain stopped. It was still dark when he left. She didn’t know what time it was.
She could not have said how long she stood in the doorway thinking of nothing, listening to the dripping rhododendrons, which were like large brooding presences stooping toward her — when he came back.