When Prodd was young the little farmhouse was there, and when he married they built on to it—a little, not a lot, just a room. If the room had ever been used the land wouldn’t have been enough. Lone slept in the room of course but that wasn’t quite the same thing. That’s not what the room was for.
Lone sensed the change before anyone else, even before Mrs Prodd. It was a difference in the nature of one of her silences. It was a treasure-proud silence, and Lone felt it change as a man’s kind of pride might change when he turned from a jewel he treasured to a green shoot he treasured. He said nothing and concluded nothing; he just knew.
He went on with his work as before. He worked well; Prodd used to say that whatever anyone might think, that boy was a farmer before his accident. He said it not knowing that his own style of farming was as available to Lone as water from his pump. So was anything else Lone wanted to take.
So the day Prodd came down to the south meadow, where Lone was stepping and turning tirelessly, a very part of his whispering scythe, Lone knew what it was that he wanted to say. He caught Prodd’s gaze for half a breath in those disturbing eyes and knew as well that saying it would pain Prodd more than a little.
Understanding was hardly one of his troubles any more, but niceties of expression were. He stopped mowing and went to the forest margin near by and let the scythe-point drop into a rotten stump. It gave him time to rehearse his tongue, still thick and unwieldy after eight years here.
Prodd followed slowly. He was rehearsing too.
Suddenly, Lone found it. ‘Been thinking,’ he said.
Prodd waited, glad to wait. Lone said,’ I should go.’ That wasn’t quite it. ‘Move along,’ he said, watching. That was better.
‘Ah, Lone. Why?’
Lone looked at him. Because you want me to go.