in the sink and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
Long after she lay down in her familiar bed, as she listened to the night sounds and contemplated the shadows cast by the shaft of moonlight coming in the skylight, she wondered why she should feel so sad.
SUNDAY MORNING MANDY again woke to sunshine. She lay with the covers up around her ears and smiled as she thought about her planned excursion with Vince Lafitte. I’ll go to church next Sunday, she promised herself as she flung off the covers and sat up. Looking across the river at the sunlight on the mountain, she began to sing “It’s a Lovely Day Today.”
The song stayed with her all morning. She hummed the tune, sang the words, or scatted nonsense syllables as she showered, as she put on her makeup, as she ate breakfast and did the dishes. She even sat down at the piano in her sweats and played a bouncy rendition, stopping in mid phrase as she realized that some of the bass notes were not completely in tune. She frowned, played a scale, and muttered, “Now, why didn’t I hear that last night? I must have been slightly out of tune myself.”
She left the piano and went upstairs to dress. As she considered the contents of the shoe rack against the closet wall, she murmured, “He said fields of daffodils.” Remembering the debacle in Mrs. Foley’s garden, she chose a pair of lightweight hiking boots. She put them on and looked at herself critically in the mirror. “I don’t suppose you’re going to grow any more,” she told her reflection. “But you look sufficiently Pacific Northwest in those shoes.”
She checked her watch. Ten o’clock. Vince wouldn’t be here until eleven. She walked to the balustrade and looked down at the living area. Everything was neat and tidy. Nothing to do there. A stack of district procedure notebooks sat on her desk in the corner, but she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for an hour spent amid state-mandated regulations.
She raised her eyes to the river. Sunshine glinted off ripples like newly minted coins scattered on the water. Without even a conscious decision to do so, Mandy descended the stairs, went out the door, and crossed the road. She spied a trail in front of her house and followed it through ankle-high grass until it dropped down into a sterile, stony expanse that bordered the river’s flow.
Mandy walked upstream, keeping her eyes on the ground because of the difficult footing. She was conscious of the warmth of the sun on her face, the songbirds in the trees alongside the river, and the soft sound of the water lapping against the rocks in the shallows. She had gone perhaps a couple hundred feet when she came to an immense pile of tree trunks all jumbled together like a game of giant Pickup Sticks. The snarl of logs rested mostly on dry riverbed but reached about a third of the way across the wide, inexorably flowing river.
She stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the logjam. Picking her way among the cobbles, she walked alongside a huge, horizontal trunk that lay on the ground. The upended roots of the mammoth tree were still anchored into the soil of the grassy bank. She grabbed hold of one of the roots, pulled herself up onto the trunk, and walked back out toward the flowing river. When she reached the water, she sat on one of the logs that had piled up behind at bench height. Leaning back against another that had been thrown up diagonally by the forces of the flood, she looked out over the scene before her. Steep mountains rose to her left, and the river stretched before her, reflecting the blue of the sky.
Mandy breathed deeply and compared the peace of this moment to the anger she had felt toward Grange Timberlain on Friday afternoon. She closed her eyes and saw again that one brow pulled down and heard him saying, “Have you tumbled to the fact yet that the reason we have to let Vonda and Sumner go is so we can pay you?” She had been too angry to consider his words, but she considered
Long after she lay down in her familiar bed, as she listened to the night sounds and contemplated the shadows cast by the shaft of moonlight coming in the skylight, she wondered why she should feel so sad.
SUNDAY MORNING MANDY again woke to sunshine. She lay with the covers up around her ears and smiled as she thought about her planned excursion with Vince Lafitte. I’ll go to church next Sunday, she promised herself as she flung off the covers and sat up. Looking across the river at the sunlight on the mountain, she began to sing “It’s a Lovely Day Today.”
The song stayed with her all morning. She hummed the tune, sang the words, or scatted nonsense syllables as she showered, as she put on her makeup, as she ate breakfast and did the dishes. She even sat down at the piano in her sweats and played a bouncy rendition, stopping in mid phrase as she realized that some of the bass notes were not completely in tune. She frowned, played a scale, and muttered, “Now, why didn’t I hear that last night? I must have been slightly out of tune myself.”
She left the piano and went upstairs to dress. As she considered the contents of the shoe rack against the closet wall, she murmured, “He said fields of daffodils.” Remembering the debacle in Mrs. Foley’s garden, she chose a pair of lightweight hiking boots. She put them on and looked at herself critically in the mirror. “I don’t suppose you’re going to grow any more,” she told her reflection. “But you look sufficiently Pacific Northwest in those shoes.”
She checked her watch. Ten o’clock. Vince wouldn’t be here until eleven. She walked to the balustrade and looked down at the living area. Everything was neat and tidy. Nothing to do there. A stack of district procedure notebooks sat on her desk in the corner, but she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for an hour spent amid state-mandated regulations.
She raised her eyes to the river. Sunshine glinted off ripples like newly minted coins scattered on the water. Without even a conscious decision to do so, Mandy descended the stairs, went out the door, and crossed the road. She spied a trail in front of her house and followed it through ankle-high grass until it dropped down into a sterile, stony expanse that bordered the river’s flow.
Mandy walked upstream, keeping her eyes on the ground because of the difficult footing. She was conscious of the warmth of the sun on her face, the songbirds in the trees alongside the river, and the soft sound of the water lapping against the rocks in the shallows. She had gone perhaps a couple hundred feet when she came to an immense pile of tree trunks all jumbled together like a game of giant Pickup Sticks. The snarl of logs rested mostly on dry riverbed but reached about a third of the way across the wide, inexorably flowing river.
She stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the logjam. Picking her way among the cobbles, she walked alongside a huge, horizontal trunk that lay on the ground. The upended roots of the mammoth tree were still anchored into the soil of the grassy bank. She grabbed hold of one of the roots, pulled herself up onto the trunk, and walked back out toward the flowing river. When she reached the water, she sat on one of the logs that had piled up behind at bench height. Leaning back against another that had been thrown up diagonally by the forces of the flood, she looked out over the scene before her. Steep mountains rose to her left, and the river stretched before her, reflecting the blue of the sky.
Mandy breathed deeply and compared the peace of this moment to the anger she had felt toward Grange Timberlain on Friday afternoon. She closed her eyes and saw again that one brow pulled down and heard him saying, “Have you tumbled to the fact yet that the reason we have to let Vonda and Sumner go is so we can pay you?” She had been too angry to consider his words, but she considered
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