The Probable Future

“Grandma, what big eyes you have.”

“I mean it. Shut up.”

Jimmy stared at her. It was growing darker. “Fine,” he agreed. He threw himself down on the bed beside her, grabbed a corner of the quilt and pulled it over himself. The only thing between them was Matt’s thesis. “What’s this?”

Stella quickly grabbed the manuscript and stuffed it under her pillow. She was wearing the bracelet her father had given her, and the bell made a small, shining sound. “Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

He kissed her then. Right away, Stella’s lips began to burn. She thought of the candle and the pin and the way love walked into a person’s life, uninvited. She could feel Jimmy’s hip against her own, and she burned there, too. Wherever he touched her, wherever he was. So this is what it was, this burning up, this wanting something you knew you shouldn’t have.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Stella said after a while. By then her lips hurt, not that she wanted to stop. All the same, she had a panicky feeling inside her chest.

“What should we do? Read?”

Stella laughed in spite of herself, then muffled her laughter, for they could hear Liza’s tread on the stair. You make me feel, Liza sang, off-key, but with feeling. You make me feel. Stella put her hand over Jimmy’s mouth so Liza wouldn’t hear him laughing. Even his breath against the palm of her hand burned. She thought of the man Hap had told her about, who was able to breathe out fire. When she leaned her head against Jimmy’s chest, she could hear what a strong heart he had. Was that what attracted her? That she saw his death when he was a very old man; that when she was with him she didn’t have to worry about what terrible fate might be waiting around the next corner?

“Turn around and don’t look,” Stella told him when it was time for him to leave. She got out of bed, slipped off her bathrobe, and pulled on a pair of jeans. When she turned back, he was definitely looking. “Well, that was trustworthy.” She was still whispering.

“What about you?” Jimmy reached for the manuscript beneath the pillow. “Are you trustworthy? Isn’t this your uncle’s thesis?”

Stella leaped to grab the pages.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Jimmy said. “I swear.”

He’d gotten off the bed; his boots had been muddy and now he dusted off the quilt. Oddly enough, she did trust him on this. He could keep a secret; he wouldn’t tell. They went downstairs together and she let him out the door. It had rained hard and the air was clear. Now it was she who watched him; she who couldn’t look away until he was all the way down the road, past the lilacs, past the shade trees where the blackbirds slept, all in a row.

I V.

AS THE DAYS GREW LONGER, there were more hours for Elinor to work in her garden. She felt greedy for the ever-expanding twilight, greedy for most everything, especially time. Her knees were bad, oh, embarrassment of age, but oddly enough when she knelt in the garden she swore she could feel the interwoven roots under the soil, the pulsing of the cicadas in the weeds, the beautiful heart of the world. She could feel the growing things quicken her own blood and she felt young again. Once, she fell asleep in the middle of the day, back against the old stone wall, just like Argus, and that was the way Brock Stewart found her, curled against the stones like a bird which had fallen from the sky, or a star that was burning, or a coil of roses without the protection of thorns.

Elinor and her old dog hadn’t heard Dr. Stewart’s Lincoln come sputtering up the driveway any more than they’d heard the warblers in the trees. Brock Stewart leaned on the garden gate. He thought about everything he’d learned from Elinor Sparrow. Why he knew that the wild roses in Unity were said to be invisible, that they tended to wilt and fade right before a person’s eyes, if one was lucky enough to ever spy them. This local variety refused to grow in gardens, in backyards, in nurseries, and yet Elinor had managed to persuade one specimen to take root and then she’d crossed it with a variety she favored. Even now with summer so close, the hybrid was still covered by a cone of burlap, which allowed sun in, yet protected against wind and bad weather, like the stone rain that had fallen last week, battering down some of the more fragile roses, until they broke in two.

The doctor came into the garden and sat on the bench he’d given to Elinor. When a person accepted a gift from someone, she was accepting the way the giver felt about her as well, any fool knew that. So what did it mean that she was sleeping on the ground, rather than using what he’d given her? He watched her breathe, and each breath was a precious thing. One more day, the doctor thought, as greedy as anyone, greedier than Elinor by a mile. Maybe two.