Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [114]
“Living with no plans at all. I keep bumping into walls.” She rolled onto her back, unable to look at him anymore. “When I moved up here I thought I’d be just like the phoebes and wood thrushes. Concentrate on every day as it came, get through winter, rejoice in summer. Eat, sleep, sing hallelujah.”
“Eat, sleep, screw your heart out, sing hallelujah.”
“Well, yeah.” She covered her face with both hands and rubbed her eyes. “The birds were getting a lot more action than me. But you know what? Turns out they do have a plan. I’m an outsider, I’m just watching. They’re all doing their own little piece of this big, rowdy thing. Their plan is the persistence of life on earth, and they are working on it, let me tell you.”
“You’re persisting.”
“In a real limited way. When I’m dead, what have I made that stays here? A master’s thesis in the U.T. library, which eleven people on the face of the earth have read or ever will.”
“I would read it,” he said. “So, twelve people.”
“You don’t want to.” She gave a short, unenthusiastic laugh. “It’s the last thing you’d ever want to read. It’s about coyotes.”
“What about them?”
She turned her head to look at him. “Everything about them. Their populations, how they’ve grown and changed over time. One of the things it shows is how people’s hunting them actually increases their numbers.”
“That can’t be.”
“You wouldn’t think so. But it’s true. I’ve got a hundred pages of proof.”
“I think I ought to read that.”
“If you want to. It’d be a nice gesture.” A gift before parting, she thought. She turned back to the ceiling and closed her eyes, feeling the distant pressure of a headache coming on. His reading it, or not, wouldn’t buy her a place in the scheme of the planet. She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. “Maybe it’s my age, Eddie. You’ve got more time to pretend your life is endless. Before you face up to the bigger picture.”
He didn’t ask her about the bigger picture. And he didn’t get up and walk out the door. He asked if she would like him to make a fire, and she said she would. Her body was shivering visibly. She pulled the blankets over her head, leaving a small window through which she could watch his careful, steady hands place kindling inside the stove. She thought about the things people did with their highly praised hands: made fires that burned out; sawed down trees to build houses that would rot and fall down in time. How could those things compare with the grace of a moth on a leaf, laying perfect rows of tiny, glassy eggs? Or a phoebe weaving a nest of moss in which to hatch her brood? Still, as she watched him light a match and bring warmth into the cabin while the rain pounded down overhead, she let herself feel thankful for those hands, at least for right now. When he climbed into bed beside her, they held her until she fell asleep.
“You’re getting sick,” he told her when she opened her eyes again.
She sat up, groggy and unsure of the time of day. He was up and dressed, shirt buttoned, even, working at the stove. He’d hooked up the new bottle of propane—a regular handyman. “What time is it?” she asked. “What do you mean I’m getting sick?”
“You sneezed in your sleep. Four times. I never heard anybody do that before.”
She stretched her limbs, feeling very tired and a little achy from the weed cutting, but nothing else. No headache; that threat had passed. “I think I’m OK.” She inhaled the rich, convivial scent of onions frying in oil, something wonderful. Occasionally it took all her wits to resist loving this man. She thought of coyotes; that helped. Something big enough to break her heart.
“You sneezed in your sleep,” he insisted. “I’m going out to get some more firewood.” He dumped two handfuls of chopped vegetables into the pot, poured in water from the kettle, and settled the iron lid on it with a happy little ring.
“Is it dark? Wait! What time is it?” She scratched her scalp and squinted at the window.
“Dusk. Why?”
“Be careful about the phoebe nest on the porch. Don’t scare her off the nest. If she goes off it this late she might