Runaway

Page 9

They stood looking down at the goat, as if hoping that she would provide them with more conversation. But she apparently was not going to. From this moment, they could go neither forward nor back. Sylvia believed that she might have seen a shadow of regret in his eyes that this was so.

But he acknowledged it. He said, “It’s late.”

“I guess it is,” Sylvia said, just as if this had been an ordinary visit.

“O.K., Flora. Time for us to go home.”

“I’ll make other arrangements for help if I need it,” she said. “I probably won’t need it now, anyway.” She added lightly, “I’ll stay out of your hair.”

“Sure,” he said. “You’d better get inside. You’ll get cold.”

“Good night,” she said. “Good night, Flora.”

The phone rang then.

“Excuse me.”

“Good night.”

It was Ruth.

“Ah,” Sylvia said. “A change in plans.”

She did not sleep, thinking of the little goat, whose appearance out of the fog seemed to her more and more magical. She even wondered if, possibly, Leon could have had something to do with it. If she were a poet, she would write a poem about something like this. But in her experience the subjects that she thought a poet would write about had not appealed to Leon, who was—who had been—the real thing.

Carla had not heard Clark go out, but she woke when he came in.

He told her that he had just been checking around the barn.

“A car went along the road a while ago, and I wondered what it was doing here. I couldn’t get back to sleep till I went out and checked whether everything was O.K.”

“So, was it?”

“Far as I could see. And then while I was up,” he said, “I thought I might as well pay a visit up the road. I took the clothes back.”

Carla sat up in bed.

“You didn’t wake her up?”

“She woke up. It was O.K. We had a little talk.”

“Oh.”

‘‘It was O.K.”

“You didn’t mention any of that stuff, did you?”

“I didn’t mention it.”

“It really was all made up. It really was. You have to believe me. It was all a lie.”

“O.K.”

“You have to believe me.”

“Then I believe you.”

“I made it all up.”

“O.K.”

He got into bed.

“Did you get your feet wet?” she said.

“Heavy dew.”

He turned to her.

“Come here,” he said. “When I read your note, it was just like I went hollow inside. It’s true. I felt like I didn’t have anything left in me.”

The bright weather had continued. On the streets, in the stores, in the post office, people greeted each other by saying that summer had finally arrived. The pasture grass and even the poor beaten crops lifted up their heads. The puddles dried up, the mud turned to dust. A light warm wind blew and everybody felt like doing things again. The phone rang. Inquiries about trail rides, about riding lessons. Summer camps cancelled their trips to museums, and minivans drew up, loaded with restless children. The horses pranced along the fences, freed from their blankets.

Clark had managed to get hold of a piece of roofing at a good price. He had spent the whole first day after Runaway Day (that was how they referred to Carla’s bus trip) fixing the roof of the exercise ring.

For a couple of days, as they went about their chores, he and Carla would wave at each other. If she happened to pass close to him and there was nobody else around, Carla might kiss his shoulder through the light material of his summer shirt.

“If you ever try to run away on me again I’ll tan your hide,” he said to her, and she said, “Who are you now—Clint Eastwood?”

Then she said, “Would you?”

“What?”

“Tan my hide?”

“Damn right.”