The Worst Thing I've Done by Ursula Hegi Page A

scooped water with a ladle across the coals, and steam swelled around them. At first he settled on the upper bench with Mason, but he said it was too hot for him and moved to where Annie was stretched out on the lower bench.
    Soon they both streaked out. To prove that he could endure the sauna longer than they, Mason stayed on the top tier, where the heat gathered, listening to them holler as they leapt into the pond. He waited a few seconds beyond where he could bear it no longer. Only then did he dash out into the cold, instantly alert, skin prickling. A cold house keeps you alert.

    W HEN J AKE and Mason removed the linoleum floors in the pond house, they discovered wide oak boards, the color of maple syrup. They sanded them, sealed them with satin varnish.
    At an estate auction in Dover, Annie bought an Oriental rug, still vibrant except for two holes worn into the center. But she darned the holes and wove woolen strands into her darning, almost matching the rest of the rug.
    By spring, Opal was talking about the Hungry Ghost and what she wanted the ghost to take away.
    â€œSeeds in oranges.”
    â€œEaraches.”
    â€œNaps. All naps.”
    Aunt Stormy encouraged her to draw pictures. “We’ll make a ghost box. And inside we’ll store slips of paper with messages for the Hungry Ghost.”
    â€œIs the box part of the Chinese custom?” Mason asked.
    â€œNo, I keep adapting the ritual.”
    On pink slips of paper, Aunt Stormy wrote what made her angry—tailgating, entitlement, all the dictators of the world, outrageous car repair bills, ads that cultivated greed—and stuffed them into the box.
    Her neighbors saved their worn bamboo rakes for the ghost’s hands, and when it came time for the burning that August, Opal gathered twigs for the flames.

    I N WINTER , he liked to rub snow against his cheeks after coming from the sauna. A coldness that didn’t sting but refreshed him, made him feel nutty. Nutty became their word that winter. Opal started using it too. Everything was nutty.
    Especially the eco-nuts at the private school where Jake taught science. The eco-nuts were his most dedicated students, as passionate about saving the earth as other adolescents were about sex. One afternoon a week Jake took them out in the school van to study and clean up the environment.
    Mason was a fund-raiser now. For New Hampshire Peace Initiative, the only organization he’d wanted to work for since his internship. The two women who’d founded NHPI were so taken by his enthusiasm that they created a job for him.
    But Annie had another year in school. Four of her collages, all from the Pond Series, were in a group exhibition in Boston. She’d been working on those images from the day they’d moved here. Mason’s favorite was of the barn leaning toward the pond as if about to drop into its own reflection.
    Opening night, he stood with Annie in front of a collage she’d finished a week ago after driving toward their house and finding the sky in the pond, clouds and blues in the sheer pearl-white of morning.
    â€œThere’s something elusive in your collages,” an academic type told her. Probably some teaching assistant. Or eternal student.
    â€œThank you.” Annie smiled.
    â€œWhat do you mean by elusive?” Mason inquired.
    â€œThat you get one moment so fully,” the man answered to Annie, “while already showing how it’s changing.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m after.” She tucked her hair behind one ear. More copper than red tonight. As if borrowing from the copper dress she wore.
    â€œWell, you are doing it.”
    â€œI’m so glad that comes through to you.”
    â€œIt’s a characteristic of my wife’s work,” Mason told him. “I’ve seen it develop over the years.” He wanted to make love to her against that collage. Wanted to be the light that made her transform what she saw. Wanted