C. Morgan - All the Living

Don’t smoke in the house, Aloma said.

He nodded. His hair was rumpled. He stepped down onto the concrete step above her. He looked out at the mountains and his face eased up just barely, but enough so that even seated beneath him on the second step, she saw it. She turned to the mountains and looked out too, but she did not know what he saw. She only knew that it pleased him.

She rose then and she was gazing up into his face, which was still above her, and she was taking his hand and he let her guide him off the steps and down the hill away from the house. His hand was large in hers, which was as small as a child’s except she was no child, she was leading him, their fingers dovetailed.

You want to see that hobber again, he said after they’d gone twenty paces in the direction of the stock barn.

No, she said. She did not lead him to the calf, though it was there by the gate waiting when they walked up, its young legs firm now under its wide baby belly. It turned its head when they approached.

Haddy, Orren said to the calf and it stepped back from the gate as if it knew they would come through and pass their hands along its soft early hide, which they did as they walked on. The gate swung shut behind them and they picked their way through the pasture. The calf juned along beside them for a few feet and bawled once so loud that it startled Aloma and she drew her shoulders up toward her ears and laughed. Still she held tight to Orren’s hand and they walked past the barn where the chickens nested on the shadowed wall and a new red-and-black rooster tightroped the empty crib near the barn door. The few cows dotting the pasture followed them as they walked the worn cowtrace on the hill, they leaned forward and lost their breath a little on its upward slope. When they came to the treeline, Orren said, Where are you taking me? She only smiled and they walked into the cooler air of the woods and two cows followed them into the shade. Orren looked back at them and shook his head and looked at Aloma and shook his head again, but he followed on without comment. The cows came on unhurried legs. At the back fence, Aloma said, Up and over, and Orren went first and helped her over the barbed wire, bunching the hem of her dress in his hand so it wouldn’t snag. The cows, having stopped a few feet back, watched them intently and then, as if agreeing together that they could not scale the fence, turned like two black ships and gaited slowly toward the sunlight in the field. Beyond the fence, Aloma walked, turning from side to side, trying to recall the exact shape of the tree, the black of the bark, and Orren watched her with one eyebrow raised and just as he was reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes, she said, Come here, Orren.

He walked over to where she stood and appraised the tree, saw the E + C , and his face did not alter. But his hand remained as still as a photograph over his breast pocket where he had been reaching when the letters penetrated his understanding. He blinked.

Now, how did I never… he said, very evenly, and then his hand shook as if it were deciding whether to take a cigarette or do something else altogether and then it reached up and covered his eyes and he stood there, not moving. A crow sounded in the trees above them as it passed, they heard the winnowing of its wings. Aloma stood beside him and traced a hand over the graven bark and the frets of the carving scraped against her fingertips. The flesh of the tree was hard now, it passed the impression of permanence. She waited patiently for Orren, looking into the half of his face that was not covered.

How long do you think it’s been here? said Aloma.

Orren lowered his hand, blinked, and shook his head. I don’t know. Thirty years. Maybe more. From when they first met maybe.

She looked past the tree toward where the house stood, hidden by the turning foliage, and he followed her gaze, then he patted his hand over his breast pocket a few times and exhaled. He looked up at the trees and she did too, at the way the sunlight penetrated the dense leaves to the spot where they stood, touching the bark of the carved tree, the ground underfoot, even their faces. Orren looked down at her. Then he took her hand and led her back out of the woods, across the pasture, and up to the old house.