Part 10 (1/2)

”Are you nervous?” Annie gives a play bow, then runs off; Cato and Reveille lie at Hattie's feet.

”Serena says I should just try not to drool. Which you did teach me, I told her. Of course, it wasn't easy,” he goes on. ”But I did learn.”

Hattie laughs. Though the banter-she sometimes wonders if Josh doesn't hide behind his banter the way he hides behind his reporting. If it isn't a species of talking without talking-of being tough. When he was little, he and Joe would retreat to the woods for weeks at a time-a wonderful thing, except that Joe would sometimes take a retreat from the retreat, leaving Josh alone for a day or two. Hardening him, Joe said. Insisting that Josh could handle it, even when he was just nine or ten. And Josh used to insist he could handle it, too, never mind that he could fit three pairs of socks in the hiking boots Joe got him; his backpack hung down to his knees. He insisted he liked being left alone like that. I did, Ma, except the time a snake came. I did.

As for what Serena likes: ”She's crazy about Pushkin-she loves Pushkin. She says it was worth learning Russian just to read Pushkin.”

”And where's home for her?”

”She doesn't have one, really, but thinks my thinking about that is outmoded, too.”

Hattie moves some copies of Nature off her reclin-o-matic. ”Didn't Pushkin have a home?”

”That's what I said. I told her I thought we were programmed to be faithful to a place. Like storks with their-what's that German word?”

”Ortstreue.” A Carter word.

”Ortstreue. Thank you.” His on-the-air voice. ”I told her you developed different relations.h.i.+ps. But she says how do I even know, when my parents could never settle down, and now look at me.”

”That was your father.”

He pauses then, as he always does, at the mention of Joe. And for a moment, they share the short silence; it's like a hallway they both use.

”She says we have Listserv to keep in touch with people,” he goes on, ”and that we journalists are like a floating village anyway. You ever see those? In Cambodia?”

”I have new neighbors from Cambodia.”

”No kidding. And here I just did the decimation of the catfish in the Tonle Sap.”

Would he have said more about his new girlfriend if she hadn't brought up her neighbors? Anyway, she explains about the trailer. The Chhungs.

”But you like the girl-this So-PEE.”

”I like them all. But the girl, especially. Yes.”

”Let me guess. The daughter you always wanted.”

Joe's bluntness.

”Though why would you want a daughter when your son is everything you'd ever dreamed of?” he goes on.

”Oh, Josh,” she says. ”You're not so bad.”

”As best you remember, you mean.”

She tries to think what to say-still improvising with Josh, after all these years. Still feeling her way. ”I do understand that coming home involves travel.”

”Getting on an airplane, you mean.”

Is that what she means?

”I'll come soon,” he continues. ”I know it's been over a year-”

”You're welcome anytime, Josh.” Hattie doesn't mean to cut him off, but maybe she has? And is that stonewalling? ”Anyway, good luck with your dinner.”

”It's time for me to get married, you mean.”

”I mean, don't drool and enjoy your food. If you like her.”

”I like her.”

Ah.

”Then, go. Live,” she says.

”Don't waste time, you mean.”

She sighs. ”I mean, live.” She stands back up and opens a window; outside, a half a dozen b.u.t.terflies have crammed themselves into a nook between some rocks. ”I mean, try and listen to your mother.”

”You mean, the unlived life is not worth living.”

She laughs. ”Exactly! You remember! What Lee used to say.”

”I thought it was what you used to say.”

”No, no.” Misattribution-the most common error of the memory. ”It was Lee. Lee used to say that.”

”Lee was great.”

”She was. Lee was great.”

She reaches down to pet Cato and Reveille at the same time, one with each hand.

Hattie does not visit the Chhungs for a week. Thinking to invite Sophy to the farmers' market again, though, Hattie finally tromps down their way, through the ferns. Which are, of course, pus.h.i.+ng up everywhere now; the hillside's a veritable sea of curls, some of which will produce a trillion spores in their lifetime. As Hattie used to tell her kids in school, ferns are prolific. She'll have to take the same route repeatedly if she wants to have a path-encourage Sophy to take it, too.

That is, if there's going to be visiting.

The daughter you always wanted.

Why would they have moved to Riverlake if they were thriving?

Well, either way she's going to pick some fiddleheads to steam up. In the meanwhile, there's her tribute of cookies to present, and her compliments to pay on the pit. She produces, too, a new kind of insect repellent-a local product with a pen-and-ink mosquito on its label. Chhung nods in thanks, smiling and smoking.

”You speak Chi-nee,” he says abruptly.

”Yes,” she says. ”I do.”

”Grew up in Chi-nah.”

”Yes. I grew up in China.”