Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy [153]
“What of the third mother?” Bee asked.
“In Oregon now. Gentle, quiet. Couldn’t fix Peony against our heaving and hauling,” Crazy Horse said. “Still, Jackrabbit grew strong, and rough times can shake a body down. I never met a kid I liked better.”
Arthur shook his head. “Jackrabbit used to fall by to see Crazy Horse whenever person worked near us, and we’d talk. Even last year we were arguing. Somehow we could never leave off arguing. I loved Jackrabbit, yet I think I must have spent ninety percent of the time we had insisting person was always wrong. Clipping, binding.” Arthur sat down abruptly and blew into a big orange handkerchief.
At the back someone rose to play a sad melody on a flute. The flutist played for perhaps ten minutes, joined by a guitar, a flat twangy instrument, a drum. After the others stopped, the guitar played a song many joined with that muffled blurry sound people have when they’re not trying to sing in unison:
“I feel like dry grass
combed by the wind, the wind.
I feel like last year’s grass
raked by the salty wind.
The tides creep in the marsh,
the water rises,
the water falls,
but the old grass finally breaks
under the wind.”
After the singing died into silence and they sat on for a while, White Oak rose. “I came here fourteen years ago to work in the plant genetics base just firming. Jackrabbit and I have been friends since sixmonth after person came here to be with Bolivar. Jackrabbit ate with us awhile, deciding what family to join. Especially we shared a love for the sea What I want to tell is something two—no, three years ago. Now, you know my loving with Susan-B was not good. Never in balance. We all critted on that and tried, but it never flew and always I felt unvalued in the end. Susan-B is gone now and I confess it’s easier for me with person living at Portsmouth. For a long time I couldn’t want to be loving with anyone, waiting for Susan-B to want to be as close to me as I wanted with per. A long saddening. When Susan-B left, I had to face the failure of the whole long struggle. I withdrew even more. I worked hard—”
“Fasure, day and night,” Bee said. “You coordinated and did the work of three.”
“I feared being close. My family suggested a healer, but I was too proud. Zo, one day Jackrabbit and I took out the green boat and spent all afternoon and evening on the bay. It was fine—the wind, the salt, the water. I felt loosened. I had not taken a day free in months. I know Jackrabbit sensed my mood, for person could easily catch changes. Doors opening, doors closing. Everyone had eaten. We scraped leftovers and Jackrabbit came along to my space … . How easy and insinuating person could be. Without deciding to, still addressing Jackrabbit in my mind as if person were half a child, we ended up coupling that night. After, I felt for the old knot, and it was melted. Only the feeling I’d been a great fool. I’d scorned what was easy, the affection of my own family, for what I couldn’t have. Since then I have tried to be simpler, better … . It wasn’t that Jackrabbit worked healer’s entrance, but person loosened the knot that pride kept tight. Once loosened, I couldn’t wait to bind myself again. Even I had that much sense.” White Oak smiled and sat down. Her gaze rested on the wall.
“Person’s way of insinuating into other people’s beds was not always productive,