“This is a story with a little girl who’s supposed to feel scared all the time. I may not feel it anymore—I may not be a girl anymore—but it’s in the bones of this house. It’s why she built it. She put a snake in the field that I can’t run from …” There were tears running down Anna’s cheeks. She wiped them with the back of her hand.
James helped her, wiping her cheeks with his big thumbs. He looked concerned. And worried. “Anna … Are you hiding here? From your story?”
She shook her head no. Her voice was very low: “But maybeshe’shiding me here. For a reason.”
James was frowning. Probably because he couldn’t think of anything optimistic to say. He put his arm around her instead, and hugged her into his side. He was still wearing her sweater. He was big and warm. And temporary.
James woke Anna up the next morning. Knocking on her bedroom door.
Anna sat up in bed. “Come in?”
He ducked in. He was already dressed—in a new cardigan of his own. “Up, up,” he said, “we have plans today.”
“Plans?” Anna never had plans.
He pulled her quilt down. She folded her bare legs under her nightgown.
“We’re going to have a picnic,” he said, “by the lake.”
“James, there isn’t a lake.”
He grinned. “Oh, there’s a lake.”
“Do you havea lakenow?”
He nodded, still grinning.
“Do you also have a picnic?”
He knelt one knee onto her bed. “No. You’re going to make the picnic.”
“How?”
He covered her eyes gently with one hand. “You can do this, Anna. I know you can.”
James’s hand was warm and real. Anna imagined a picnic. A basket with a red-checked lining. Sandwiches with olives on toothpicks. A green-plaid thermos with iced tea. A cherry pie.
When she opened her eyes, the basket was sitting on her bed, and James was beaming down at her.
Anna put on a yellow sundress with white tennis shoes—they were clothes she’d had since she was a girl, but they still fit.
James waited for her out on the porch.
Please,she thought,don’t take him. Not until after our picnic. I’ve never had a picnic.
“Why do you have a lake?” she asked him as they walked through the yard.
James had taken her hand. He was leading her. “I don’t know yet. Let’s hope it doesn’t disappear before we get there.”
His lake seemed to be connected to her farm. Anna squealed when she saw it. And James laughed. The lake was small and clear, with a little pier at one end. They sat on the pier and took off their shoes, letting their feet dangle in the water. There were fish swimming farther below.
“You have your own fishing hole,” Anna said.
He grinned at her some more.
“Are you still someone writing a book?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. That feels fuzzier. But I have an apartment now. I can see it clear as day.”
