The Love Of A Good Woman

Derek said they had weed growing in the bushes. But he wouldn’t buy from them, not trusting their security.

Rosemary refused to smoke with Derek.

“I’m too turbulent around you,” she said. “I don’t think it would be good.”

“Suit yourself,” said Derek. “It might help.”

Neither would A

They didn’t know that Derek had let Karin try once. She didn’t know how to inhale either, and he had to teach her. She tried too hard; she inhaled too deeply and had to fight to keep from throwing up. They were out in the barn, where Derek kept all the rock samples he had collected up on the ridges. Derek tried to steady her by telling her to look at the rocks.

“Just look at them,” he said. “Look into them. See the colors. Don’t try too hard. Just look and wait.”

But what calmed her down eventually was the lettering on a cardboard box. There was a pile of cardboard boxes which A

“What are you laughing at?” Derek said, and she told him what she was doing. The words came tumbling out miraculously.

Read. Red. Dead. Dare. Era. Ear. Are. Add. Adder. “Adder” was the best. It used up all the letters.

“Amazing,” said Derek. “Amazing Karin. Dread the Red Adder.”

He never had to tell her not to mention any of this to her mother or to A

This was one of the times when Rosemary was happy. They had been to Derek and A

Rosemary and Derek were leaning across the table teasing each other, making kissing faces. They never saw her.

Maybe it was that same night, leaving, that Rosemary laughed at the two chairs set outside the back door. Two old dark-red metal-tube chairs, with cushions. They faced west, towards the last remnants of the sunset.

“Those old chairs,” said A

“They’re not even all that comfortable,” said Derek.

“No, no,” said Rosemary. “They’re beautiful, they’re you. I love them. They just say Derek and A

“If they can see it through the pea vines,” Derek said.

The next time Karin went out to pick vegetables for A

A

She had cut her hair. It was cut short and fluffed out like any gray-haired matron’s. And she was doing something-her elbows moved. She was working in the dim light, but Karin couldn’t see what the work was.

She tried the trick of making A

“Woo-oo-ooo-woo.”

A

“It’s me, it’s me. It’s your lost child,” said Karin.

“Why so it is,” said A

She had got fatter-or the short hair made her look that way- and her face had red blotches on it, as if bugs had been biting her. Her eyes looked sore.

“Do your eyes hurt?” Karin said. “Is that why you’re working in the dark?”

A

As a temporary tactic, Karin became this much younger child. She sprawled in a chair beside the table and said boisterously, “So-where’s old Derek?” She was thinking that this strange behavior of A

“I’m sure he’s around somewhere,” A

“He and Rosemary had a big split-up, did you know that?”

“Oh yes, Karin. I knew that.”

“Do you feel sorry about it?”

A

Karin dipped a fork. She said, “Yesterday Rosemary and I did what we wanted all day. We never even got dressed. We made waffles and we read stuff in these old magazines. Old Ladies’ Home Journals.”

“Those were my mother’s,” said A

“She’s lovely,” said Karin. “She’s engaged. She uses Pond’s.”

A

“Can this marriage be saved?” said Karin, taking on a deep ominous tone. Then she changed to wheedling and whining.

“The problem is that my husband is really mean and I just don’t know what to do about him. For one thing he has gone and eaten up all our children. It’s not because I don’t give him good meals to eat either because I do. I slave all day over a hot stove and make him a delicious di

“Now stop,” said A

“But I really want to know,” said Karin, in a subdued but stubborn voice. “Can this marriage be saved? “

All last year, when she thought of the place where she most wanted to be, Karin had thought of this kitchen. A big room whose corners stayed dim even when the light was on. The patterns of green leaves brushing the windows. All the things here and there that strictly speaking didn’t belong in a kitchen. The treadle sewing machine and the big overstuffed armchair, its maroon covering oddly worn to gray-green on the armrests. The large painting of a waterfall done long ago by A