The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [87]
“Kitten.” His arm encircled her. “Just let it go. You don’t have to keep picking at scabs.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“I think so.”
“Maybe. Could we sit down for a minute? Because I’m getting tired.”
“Sure.”
They sat with their backs against the trunk of an oak. A breeze was blowing, and he watched the dancing pattern of sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead, bright green dots dancing on the dark green forest floor. She settled her head on his shoulder. He patted his pockets, searching for a pipe, but he hadn’t brought one. It would have been pleasant to smoke a pipe now while watching the sunlight pattern and enjoying her presence beside him.
“No bears,” she said.
“Hibernating.”
“This time of year?”
“I snuck into their dens in January and turned off their alarm clocks.”
“When will they get up?”
“As soon as they stop hibernating.”
“Daddy? Can I ask you something?”
“About bears?”
“No. Heavier than bears.”
“Bears are pretty heavy.”
“Daddy?”
“What is it, kitten?”
“I just, I don’t know—I say that all the time, don’t I? ‘I don’t know.’ I never realized I did that until the psychiatrist pointed it out. But I still say it.”
“When were you seeing a psychiatrist?”
“At school. I got … oh, things bothered me a lot. Or I thought they did. I saw him three times. No, four. He said I was all right. Daddy?”
“What?”
“Does it get easier?”
She was so vulnerable, so soft and open and vulnerable. He said, “Do you mean sex or love? Or both?”
“I mean the whole thing. You know. Life. When I was a kid I always thought when you grew up everything was perfect, and I’m eighteen years old, and I always thought eighteen was when you got to be grown up, and then, I don’t know.”
After a moment he said, “I was trying to remember what it was like when I was eighteen. It’s hard to see your own past with any real clarity. I was much less mature at your age than you are. I didn’t really get around to the kind of growth you’re going through until after the war. The war had something to do with it but not everything. Kids grow up much faster than they did. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad.”
“Neither am I.”
“Does it get easier? That’s a good question. I don’t think it gets better. But in a way it does get easier. Because you learn things. You learn how to handle it. And it doesn’t hurt as much.”
She had taken his hand in both of hers. Now she squeezed it hard. They sat awhile in silence before heading back toward the house. He was happy, very happy, and very close to tears.
On the way back she said, “You got me out of my mood. I just wish—”
“What do you wish?”
“Oh, that I thought more of myself. I don’t think I’m a very terrific person.”
“I think you’re an utterly terrific person.”
“Well, you have to. I’m your daughter.”
He said, “If I weren’t your father, and if I had a daughter, I would give anything to have her turn out like you.”
She began to cry. He took her in his arms and held her close. She looked up at him, beaming through her tears, “You always know just the right words,” she said. “You ought to be a writer, you know that?”
The book didn’t stink.
He gathered up the manuscript, squared its edges, set it on the desk top. He had read it carefully all the way through, expecting to hate it, and it simply wasn’t awful. It was taut, spare. The characters sounded real. The scenes had life.
But it wasn’t quite right, either.
He lit a cigarette, leaned back, watched the smoke crawl toward the ceiling. This reading, he decided, had been worthwhile. He knew what was wrong with the book. It was possible that the book’s flaw was not what had mired him on its hundred and nineteenth page, but he knew that the resolution of that flaw would be enough spur to get him going again. If he could figure out what to do about it.
The book was thin. There wasn’t sufficient substance to it.
It was, very simply, the story of a woman’s life as shown in the three years before and two or three years after the death of her husband. Other parts of her life would be included in flashback and reminiscence,