Again she shook her head. She turned away from the window and cowered into the corner. Her white teeth scraped and scraped at the back of her hand. He reached out and gently put it down. She let him.
Twice more he spoke to her, but she would not answer except to acknowledge it, and that only by turning her face slightly away from him each time. He subsided at last, sat back and watched her.
Just outside of town where the highway forks, the driver asked timidly, ‘Which way?’ and it was Hip who said, ‘Left.’ Janie came out of herself enough to give him a swift, grateful glance and sank out of sight behind her face.
At length there was a difference in her, in some inexplicable way, though she still sat numbly staring at nothing. He said quietly, ‘Better?’
She put her eyes on him and, appreciably later, her vision. A rueful smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. ‘Not worse anyway.’
‘Scared,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Me too,’ he said, his face frozen. She put her hand on his arm. ‘Oh Hip, I’m sorry; I’m more sorry than I can say. I didn’t expect this—not so soon. And I’m afraid there isn’t anything I can do about it now.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘You can’t tell me? Or you can’t tell me yet? ’