are easy to come by.”
“What about family?”
“My folks live in Hartford now and I call them every week. I see them once in a while. My brother moved out to the west coast a few years ago, met someone out there and got married. They have a little girl. I go out to visit them every year, in the winter.”
“Friends?”
“I have one very close friend. I’ve known her since high school. She moved to Boston, but we see each other every couple of weeks. We’ve gone on vacation together a few times. Once in a while, I have dinner with Jill and a couple of the other women at the office.”
“And, now and then, you go out on a terrible date.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“And you don’t consider this one of those terrible dates.”
“I don’t. Do you?”
He knew that he should back away from her. She didn’t fit into his plans.
Be careful.
“No, I don’t either.”
“You know,” she said, in a reassuring voice, “I’m not looking for anything permanent, if there is such a thing. So I’m not dangerous.”
“So far.”
She smiled and echoed, “So far.”
She opened her handbag and took out a small note pad and a ballpoint pen. She wrote her name, address and phone number on a sheet of paper, tore it off the pad and handed it to him.
“For your Rolodex.”
Later, he drove her to her home on a quiet street about a mile north of Route Forty-Six. It was a small, old-fashioned New England saltbox. A wrought iron bench, painted white, stood on the lawn a few feet from the front steps.
At her door, she shook hands with him and said, “I had a nice time tonight.”
“For a change?”
She laughed. “For a change.”
“So did I.”
“Call me.”
Her voice was very soft and her hand was small and fragile.
“I will.”
When he was driving back to Pennington, he shook his head a couple of times, as if he were disagreeing with someone.
I shouldn’t call her. No reason to call her.
He thought of the wind chimes, hanging from a branch in the forest.
Music where no one can hear it. What a waste.
He remembered the harsh jangling when he hit the chimes with a stone.
He decided to call her anyway.
Although he walked through the Cascades at the usual time on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning, he didn’t meet Fay again.
I’ve known her for only a few days and she’s already trying to avoid me. That’s encouraging.
On Wednesday morning, it was warm and summery, so he wore shorts and a tee-shirt. Halfway to the waterfall, he started to run. His stride was smooth and practiced.
He drew the heavy, tree-scented air into his lungs, and felt the gentle fingers of a self-created breeze. He moved through variegated patterns of sun and shadow, from light to darkness and back again.
He remembered the fierce joy of running beyond his endurance, beyond thought, beyond feeling, running until there was nothing but running—no earth, no sky, no sun, just the painful rhythm of step after step after step.
What was chasing him then?
And now?
4
Let’s Get Lost
On Wednesday afternoon, he went to the library.
A poster on a bulletin board near the entrance announced a screening of Eisenstein’s film, Alexander Nevsky, at a community college a few towns away. He had seen the film when he was an undergraduate. He couldn’t remember anything about it.
Fay saw him approaching her desk and tried to look friendly.
“Good morning. Do you have a minute?” Lucas asked.
“Sure.”
“Thanks for your help. I got that job at the nursery. I start next Monday.”
“For some reason, Henry seemed very interested in hiring you.”
Lucas smiled.
“He’s looking forward to sticking it to me.”
“Why? He doesn’t even know you.”
“We met once, remember? He thinks I don’t care enough about good and evil.”
“But he hired you anyway.”
“Actually, Leo Sage did. Henry wasn’t there.”
“I guess you’re Henry’s latest project.”
“He wants to save my soul?”
“No doubt about it.”
“Maybe I’ll go to one of his Bible classes.”
Fay just shook her head.
“I haven’t seen you on your morning walk lately,” Lucas said.
“I guess I’ve been a little lazy.”
“I miss the company. Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Probably.”
She looked around the library, as if she was hoping for an interruption, but all she saw was the clerk on duty, and an elderly woman reading the Hartford Courant at a corner table.
“Joey told me about Saturday night,” she said. “I can’t believe you let him fix you up.”
“His friend had cancelled and he needed a replacement. I just went along for the ride.”
She responded too quickly. “Joey said you and your date skipped out on him,” and then she tried to look unconcerned.
“The place was too noisy. So we left. Went to a coffee house for a while.”
“It doesn’t sound like a total disaster.”
“It wasn’t.”
She
