“Now?” he said. “Can we double your vocabulary, do you suppose?” They both laughed. “What word will you try? No?”
No, she told him quite decisively, and pointed one finger at his chest.
“Ashley?” he said. “Try it, then.”
She blushed and bit her lower lip. But he could tell as soon as she spoke his name that she must have been practicing before a looking glass. The lip movements were precise and perfect. He doubled up with laughter and she punched him on one shoulder. She was frowning in vexation when he caught her eye, but then she laughed too.
“Not Ahzhee,” he said. “Ashley.”
That is what I said,she told him with impatient hands and shoulders.
“Sh-sh-sh,” he told her, taking one of her hands by the wrist and holding it in front of his mouth while he set the fingertips of her other hand against his throat. “Not zh, but sh-sh-sh.”
“Shhhh,” she said obediently.
Thelsound was more difficult to show her. He had not realized how many sounds must be invisible to the beholder. This one, he discovered, was formed with the tongue behind the teeth. He began to have more respect for her skill in being able to read lips so well.
“Ahshley,” she said at last, after they had stood face-to-face for every bit of five minutes.
He should tackle that first sound, he thought. But his name spoken thus in her low, sweet, toneless voice sounded just too charming.
“Yes,” he said, smiling warmly at her. “Yes, Emmy.”
“Yess, Ahshley,” she said, and covered her face with her hands and laughed.
He took her by the shoulders and drew her against him, then hugged her tightly and rocked her as they both laughed. Her eyes were dancing with merriment when she tipped her head back and looked up at him.
“Yess, Ahshley.”
He rubbed his nose back and forth across hers. “At this rate,” he said, “you will learn three hundred and sixty-five words in a year, Emmy. One extra in a leap year.”
Spare me,she told him with a mock grimace.
“Naow,” she said.
He grinned. “Oh-oh-oh.”
“Oh-oh-oh. No.”
“You have been teaching yourself,” he said, drawing her arm through his again. “You have been making my services as a teacher redundant.”
“No.” She pulled her arm free and her hands went to work. “Naow. Oh-oh-oh. Ahzhee. Sh-sh-sh. L-l-l-l.” She pointed at him.
He chuckled. “Very well,” he said. “I can still correct your pronunciation.” Except for the opening sound of his own name, he reminded himself.
“Yess.” She smiled sunnily at him. “Yes, Ahshley.”
They grinned at each other, thoroughly pleased with themselves.
“And now you must teach me,” he said. “Let us stroll onward in silence. Noise—the need to make noise in conversation—causes us to miss so much, Emmy. Teach me.”
“Yess,” she said again.
Conversation really was unnecessary, he discovered over the next half hour or so. They shared a pleasure in the morning just as surely as if they had spoken of it.
By the time they returned to the house, he felt almost at peace. Almost happy.
•••
