Encompassing Love by Richard Lord

clicking into the water and back out with tiny minnows in her hands each time.  Adam laughed to himself and Tomorrow, hearing his joy in her head looked over to him and smiled.
    Eventually Adam said, “That’s enough. They will know something is up if the minnows are all dried out.  Fish are very smart!”  He began explain how to cast a line and demonstrated several times, reminding her often that the hooks could be painful to them if she wasn’t sure to cast safely.  He also explained the usual errors such as getting the line caught in a tree, dredging the bottom and ending up pulling in muck, etc.  She listened very intently and then he let her try.
    Tomorrow looked at him, “How as that?”
    Adam replied, “Not bad for the first time.  Pull it in slowly.  Then keep working on your cast.”
    After a while she looked back at Adam who was simply sitting there watching her.  “Aren’t you going to help?”
    “Nah, I have faith in you, Tomorrow.”
    “This seems like a lot of work.  It’s becoming boring.”  She announced.
    “That’s part of the joy of it.  You know you are working on your survival and not wasting time.  But you start to do it automatically and it becomes a great time to just think about the beauty of the world around you.”
    Tomorrow thought about that.  She shrugged and continued.  Then she felt something pull on the line.  She yelled, “Something is tugging at it, hard.”
    Adam stood and said, “Okay, pull hard now and then let go.”  She did that. Adam continued with a play by play.  Now slowly pull in the line, but if it gets too tight let a little bit out.  This is the hard part.  You have to feel what it’s doing and try to wear it down so it doesn’t break the line.”
    Tomorrow then saw it leap out of the water.  In an instant she was gone and back next to Adam, her pole laying on the ground with the line slack and she tossed the fish that was struggling, in her arms, up further away from the water.  She tuned to Adam excited and asked, “How’d I do?”
    Adam rubbed his neck and thought.  He wasn’t quite sure how to answer, but he tried anyway, “Well, not exactly what I intended to teach you, but your clicking skills are coming along well.”
    Tomorrow smile faded, “What did I do wrong?  We used the line until it leaped and I could see it then I grabbed clicked out and grabbed it.  Wasn’t that the plan?”
    “It’s certainly efficient, Tomorrow.  Now I’ll teach you how to clean a fish so we can cook it and you can taste fish for the first time.  I thought you might catch a salmon given that they are in run right now, but you did even better!  You caught a bass!  That’s pretty impressive!”  He reached to give her a big hug and she hugged him back while watching the fish flop on the land.  Seeing her attention was on her prize he let go as she ran over to pick it up.  He yelled after her, “After I teach you how to clean that we need to make a fire.  Fish meat doesn’t stay good for long.  One day, I’ll teach you how to eat it as sushi.  You don’t have to cook it then, but you have to know what to look for before you eat fish raw.”  Adam could tell she wasn’t paying much attention to him, but he saw her nod.  He smiled.
    Tomorrow looked up from what she was doing, “Are you happy with me?”
    Adam grinned, “Well, the next lesson was going to be fishing via boat.  I was thinking something along the lines of a tin can with a Johnson 9.9 strapped to the back of it, but after watching your method I can see we're going to need a bigger boat.”

CHAPTER 13
    “Just when you think you are beginning to understand people, you find out you know less about them than they do about you.”  -- from the Book of Phillip
    “Whatever!” Venetia screamed back at him.  When I brought Marla to this bed it was between us.  You weren’t invited, but you took over that soon.”  Venetia was finding her clothes and putting them on