The World More Full of Weeping (8 page)

She had shaken her head.

“Why not? I'm sure my dad wouldn't mind.”

“I think we should keep all this just between us,” she had
said. “I don't think you should tell your father anything about
me. It can be our little secret.”

“All right,” he said, a little hesitantly, not really understanding.
“But why — ”

“He just wouldn't understand.”

“Who's we?”

How much to say? How much to reveal?

“Just Carly.” He went to the cupboard and brought down
two plates and two bowls and started setting the table.

“Who's Carly? Is she someone from school?”

“No, I think she lives on one of the big farms. She dresses
like the girls who go to that other school.”

It was a good answer: his father seemed to relax a little
bit. He turned back to the stove, stirred the pot of soup.

“Is she out there all the time with you?”

He knew instinctively not to let his guard down. “Most
days, I guess.” He knew better than to tell his father about
how she was always waiting for him, or about the places
she had shown him. Or about what had happened that
afternoon.

His father nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “I wish you
had mentioned her sooner.”

Brian paused in the cutlery drawer. “Why?”

He sighed and turned off the stove. “It might have . . .
Your mom and I, we worry about you. I know how much
you like it back there, and I know how much you like being
alone, but it makes me feel better to know you're not always
on your own.”

Brian allowed himself to relax. It felt like a storm has
passed, that he had wiggled his way out from his father's
anger. As he set the cutlery by the plates, he felt his smile
returning. He tried to contain it, but couldn't. The feelings
were just too big.

She had kissed him.

That was why he had been late.

They had been saying goodbye at the forest's edge when
she had leaned in and brushed her lips against his. Her lips
had been dry, and when she stepped back she had looked
away, down at her feet.

“What — ” He couldn't even put the question together, his
mind speeding in small concentric circles, his heart vibrating
wildly in his chest.

“I'm sorry,” she said softly, still looking at the ground. “I
didn't mean to . . .”

“No,” he stopped her. “No, I . . .”

“It's just that — ” She looked up at him, her head still angled
toward the ground, her eyes almost hidden by the fall of her hair.
“It's just — ”

“It's okay.” His face was hot.

“I just like you. An awful lot. And I hate it when you have to
go. I miss you.” Her words came in whispered bursts, as if she
had to steel herself for every phrase.

“You . . . like me?”

She had nodded, looking up at him slowly, shyly.

His father was staring at him strangely from across the
table, and Brian felt the stretch of his smile pulling at the
corners of his mouth.

“Good soup, Dad,” he said, trying to draw his attention
away.

They sat side by side on the fallen log. Brian was keenly
aware of how close she was to him, how near her hand, resting
on her leg, was to his own.

“It's hard for me when you have to go,” she said, looking
toward the scrim of undergrowth that separated the worlds of
forests and fields. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” Until that moment, he wouldn't have
really been able to label his feelings. He hadn't realized that
his thinking of her, his wanting to be with her, the empty space
within himself when he was away from her, had a name.

He knew about missing someone, of course. Since his mother
had gone, he had missed her every day. But this was different.
Stronger. Sharper.

“I don't like having to leave.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes the pale green of a spring
leaf. Without thinking, he reached out and took her hand,
entwining his fingers through hers. Looking into her eyes,
he was surprised to see her need there. He had thought, until
that moment, that he was the only one who felt the absence of
someone so deeply, that he was alone in missing someone so
much it physically ached.

“I talked to your mom on the phone today,” his father
said, scraping his spoon along the bottom of his mostly
empty bowl. “We talked a long time.”

Something in his father's voice made Brian look up.
“About what?”

“About you,” his father said, setting the spoon down.
“About the fall.”

“What about the fall?”

“Your mom . . . your mom and I, like I said, we're a bit
worried. About you. About how much time you're spending
on your own. We think . . . we think it might be best if you
tried going to school in the city next year.”

“No!” he cried out sharply, before he knew he was doing
it.

His father nodded. “I know this is a bit of a surprise, but
we've been talking about it.”

“You never talked to me.”

“There's a lot of programs you can do after school, a lot
of opportunities that Henderson just doesn't have.”

“But . . .”

“And it's not right away. You'll finish up this year here,
and we'll get you moved over the summer. I figure you can
come home every weekend if you want.”

“What if I don't want to go at all?”

“Brian, it's — ”

“What if I want to stay here?”

“Your mom and I — ”

“I don't want to go!”

His father sighed. “Let's not get into a fight about this, all
right? When you're there next week, I think you'll see — ”

“Next week?”

“Spring break,” his father explained. “You're spending
the week with your mom. She thought it might be a good
chance . . .”

“Next week?”

“We've talked about this.”

“Right.” He vaguely remembered them talking about
it, looking at the calendar, how excited his mom had been
about it during the last weekend at her apartment in the
city.

But that had all been before he met Carly.

The thought of her tightened his stomach into a hard
ball.

“When is she coming to pick me up?” he asked.

“Sunday afternoon. And she said she'd bring you back
around dinnertime the next Sunday, so you'll have a full
week.”

Brian nodded and looked down at his bowl, unable to
even think of having another bite.

“I know it's a lot, Brian. But I think — ”

“Can I be excused?”

His father seemed to deflate. “Yeah. Clear your dishes.”

For a moment, just before Brian turned away, a look of
sadness flashed across his father's face, an expression he
tried to hide.

He doesn't want me to go. He thinks I don't want to go
because I'll miss him.

The thought cut through Brian, forcing him to look
again at his father, to see the deep sadness just under his
skin, the dark behind his eyes.

He didn't like seeing that sadness, that weakness, in his
father. He didn't like knowing that he had done something
to put it there, that the mere thought of his absence was
enough to hurt him.

Missing him.

He didn't like admitting to himself that he hadn't even
considered his father when he thought of having to move
to the city.

All he had thought about was Carly.

Missing her.

The lights were still off in Brian's room. Jeff could hardly see
Diane in the spill of the work lights through the curtains.
She was curled on her side on Brian's bed, her knees pulled
in tight to her chest. She faced away from the door, toward
the window.

Her breathing was deep and regular.

Jeff crept into the room, silent, trying not to disturb
her.

He stood behind the bed. Through the window he could
see the wall of the shop, the slow, gentle spread of the field,
and the wall of darkness that was the forest behind.

He sat down carefully at the foot of the bed.

There is no lonelier sound than the deep, calm, in and
out of another's breath beside you, nothing that can make
you feel quite so distant, quite so removed.

He had once taken comfort in Diane's breathing next
to him, the calm regularity of it providing solace and
reassurance in the darkest hours of the night.

When had that changed? When had that sound started
to make him feel so crushingly alone?

“He's not coming back, is he?” she asked quietly, in a
voice that was strong and clear but still bore the echo of
tears.

The sound startled him. “I thought you were asleep.”

“No.”

The silence, the space between them, was deep and
wide. He wanted to cross it, to reach out to touch her, but
he no longer knew her. And he couldn't bear to have her pull
away from him.

“I've been lying here, listening to them outside. I hear
their voices, but I can't make out what they're saying.
They're not going to find him.”

“Don't say that.”

In another time, she would have rolled on her back, or to
face him. They would have looked into one another's eyes,
found a way to comfort each other.

But she remained on her side, facing away.

“They'll find him,” Jeff said, but as he spoke, he realized
that he didn't believe the words himself.

The sun was bright and warm, but the air was cool and
smelled of the sea. Was Brian imagining it, or did he hear
the faint sound of waves in the distance?

He followed Carly down the steep slope, his pack
bouncing occasionally off moss-covered rocks and damp
tree trunks. He kept one eye on the terrain around him
and one eye on Carly. She was a fair ways ahead, moving
over the rough ground with a light ease and grace, a natural
comfort Brian envied. This was her world: she fit into it as
naturally as the birdsong in the air, as the spongy, mossy
ground under his feet.

Could he ever be as comfortable here? Would he get to
a point where he could seem to float between obstacles, to
step gracefully between worlds?

Every so often she would stop and look back at him,
smiling broadly, encouragingly. There was no impatience,
no sense that he was holding her back or that she was
waiting for him. Looking at her, someone would think she
had all the time in the world.

“We're almost there,” she called.

“Where?” he called back, steadying himself with a thin
tree trunk.

“You'll see.”

He thought these were the most wonderful words
someone had ever said to him, and Carly said them all
the time.
You'll see.
Spending time with her was a world of
surprises through every copse of trees, through every stand
of brush, in every clearing. It was a world of wonders that
she revealed to him in every moment.

And she herself was one of those wonders.

You'll see
.

She was waiting for him in a small clearing. The sound
of waves was louder here, the smell of salt and spray sharp
and intoxicating.

She looked at him coyly, but didn't say anything.

He stepped toward her slowly.

“Look,” she said, stepping to one side to reveal the most
beautiful plant he had ever seen.

It was pure white, shimmering and almost translucent,
so bright it almost hurt his eyes. It had no leaves, only a
thick white stem and a number of small white flowers. I
was clearly a plant, but just barely.

It looked like something out of a dream.

Brian stepped forward, crouched in the loamy softness
as he bent to examine the plant.