Part 3 (1/2)

He laughs his old laugh, with a drop of his jaw-as if he just has to make a show of his hearty pink tongue and scattered gold crowns. ”That's my Hattie, ever sweet and obliging. You know what I remember most about Chinese?”

When he arches his brows, they make little familiar tents, too-pup tents she always thought them. An expression Carter himself taught her, although not for his eyebrows, of course, but for the real pup tents he and his brothers used to pitch in their backyard.

”Bu du!-wrong! You loved to say that. You never said, 'Try that one more time' or 'You need to purse your lips' or 'Try touching your tongue to your palate.' You just said, Bu du!”

”Well,” she says, collecting herself a little-Carter did always make you have to collect yourself. ”I suppose no one else ever told you you were wrong, did they?”

”Bu du.” His crow's-feet are more p.r.o.nounced than his frown lines, she's happy to see; and his plaid s.h.i.+rt is missing its second b.u.t.ton-so that's why the two unb.u.t.toned b.u.t.tons. White thread ends sprout from the flannel like the hairs that could be sprouting from his ears but, she sees, are not. ”Many people told me. You just wanted to tell me yourself. Though here's what I've been meaning to ask you all these years-why you never said it to Reedie. He told me that to him you always said, Hn bang!”

”Well, you know.” She gestures vaguely. ”Reedie.”

”Did you hear he got killed in a car accident last November?”

”Reedie?” She freezes.

”Driving drunk. Hit a beech tree. We tried to reach you, but no one knew where you were.”

”Oh my G.o.d.”

”I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you.”

And indeed, where was Judy Tell-All to warn her? Shouldn't Judy Tell-All have warned her?

”No,” she says. ”No.”

”I'm sorry,” he says again. ”And here you were right in Riverlake. As we would no doubt have heard had Reedie's ashes been buried here and not elsewhere.”

”No.”

”His wife said it was his unequivocal choice to be buried with her family.” He looks off. ”Dear Sheila. I heard about Joe, by the way.” He stops. ”The Turners told me.”

She waves a hand.

”I'm so sorry. Two years ago?”

She nods.

”So young.”

She nods again, or thinks she does. If there is any point in bringing up Lee, she can't anyway.

”Joe was a good man.” Carter hesitates in his Carter-like way-not looking away, as other people do, but fixing on her again instead. ”It was a shock, as I hardly need tell you.”

Reedie's death, he must mean. Anyway, she cries and cries.

Really she should ask him in, but Carter has already settled himself, leaning back against the porch railing as if against his desk. His elbows are bent, and his shoulders raised up, one hand sitting to either side of his hips. Much the way that a dog or cat sits, according to a little neural sub-routine, he arranges himself the way he always has; he's ready to talk. And even as her chest heaves, she finds that her arms and legs have answered his on their own, crossing themselves and leaning sideways against the doorframe as if in his office doorway. It's the force of habit-these patterns embedded, no doubt, in their very Purkinje cells. A disconcerting idea, in a way. And yet what a comfort it is right now-knowing the same dance, and knowing that they know it. It's a comfort.

”I used to tell him it wasn't worth trying to catch up to me,” he begins. ”That there was nothing to catch up to. But he had that idea, and it made him feel pressured.”

She nods, numb.

”He didn't care about Anderson. I guess Anderson was too far out of his league.”

”Anderson he wors.h.i.+pped.”

”Precisely. But me.” He laughs a short laugh, pressing his long fingers into the railing, which flakes a bit; it needs paint. ”I guess he thought anyone should be able to catch up to me.”

”You really think it was your fault?”-her mouth talking without her.

”No.”

”You just wonder”-her s.h.i.+rt sleeve is rough-”if you contributed.”

”Yes.” Carter's voice still falls like an ax, but there is something new in his gaze-something lanternlike and reflective. ”There are few subjects about which one dares generalize these days, but if I may in this instance: The death of a brother does give one pause.” He exhales. ”And wonder how one contributed, as you put it. He had his own lab at the end, you know. He was doing good work-AIDS research. NIH loved him.”

”So I guess he caught up to you, by the end.”

”I would have said pa.s.sed me. But as you know, we see what we see.”

”World makers that we are, you mean.”

”Yes.” Carter hesitates, his eyes on her, then says again, ”He always felt pressure”-a backtrack so uncharacteristic that, upset as she is, she can't help but notice. People used to say his train of thought really was like a train-that he made his stops and moved on. She's never known him to wander, as others do, after what he used to call the wraith of an idea. Not that it much matters if he does now-since when are the people we admire most like trains anyway?-except that Hattie remembers what people said about his father-he's slipping-and how that haunted Carter. Dr. Hatch is slipping. Is that why he retired? It is hard to believe that he'd be slipping in any noticeable way at sixty-seven. And yet maybe that was the idea, to get out before anyone noticed-before anyone could say that about him.

”I brought a towel,” he announces suddenly. ”And a wet suit.” He toes his bag, leaving a dimple in it. ”A concession to middle age.”

”Are you thinking about a swim?” When there could still be ice floes in the water? Now this does make her wonder about his mental competence. He can't be serious.

But he is. ”With company, I hope. Do you own a wet suit?”

”Maybe you'd like to come in first?”

A belated invitation, half hospitality, half avoidance: Whether or not Carter is still his old self, she is no longer the Hattie who would dive into any kind of water. Time's made a sensible creature out of her.

Carter gives a Carter Hatch shake of his head, though-with a back and forth so subtle, it could almost be a tic. How used to being read he is-to people divining his thoughts. (The Gnome, people called him in the lab; and later, she heard, the G-nome, though it was Anderson who was working on the genome, not he.) ”I heard you've retired from the saving of our nation's youth,” he says suddenly.

Just teasing, she knows, and yet she bristles. ”The youth do need our help, Professor.”

He smiles. ”You've grown testy in your old age, Hattie.”

Testy.

”And what about you? What have you grown?” She's trying to tease-trying not to be testy.

”Stupid-I've grown stupid.” Another smile. ”Sweet and slow, as they say.”

”Oh, Carter,” she says. ”You'll never be sweet.”

Inviting return fire, she thinks. But he just sinks into himself a moment-his irises as blue as ever, though she can't help but look for the arcus senilis around his corneas, and finds it: that faintly milky edging that midlife will bring, like a sea of memory r.i.m.m.i.n.g one's worldview.

”And if I do not own a wet suit?” she goes on, more gently.