So I went back to him in the cool of an early fall evening, and he took what little I had in my eyes, and turned from me angrily with a gross word I shall not permit myself to remember.
‘You can’t find it,’ he told me. ‘Don’t come back.’
He got up and went to a tattered birch and leaned against it, looking out and down into the wind-tossed crackling shadows. I think he had forgotten me already. I know he leaped like a frightened animal when I spoke to him from so near. He must have been completely immersed in whatever strange thoughts he was having, for I’m sure he didn’t hear me coming.
I said, ‘Lone, don’t blame me for not finding it. I tried.’
He controlled his startlement and brought those eyes down to me. ‘Blame? Who’s blamin’ anybody?’
‘I failed you,’ I told him, ‘and you’re angry.’
He looked at me so long I became uncomfortable.
‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,’ he said.
I wouldn’t let him turn away from me. He would have. He would have left me forever with not another thought; he didn’t care! It wasn’t cruelty or thoughtlessness as I have been taught to know those things. He was as uncaring as a cat is of the bursting of a tulip bud.
I took him by the upper arms and shook him, it was like trying to shake the front of my house. ‘You can know!’ I screamed at him. ‘You know what I read. You must know what I think!’