Free The Evolution of Jane by Cathleen Schine Page A

every hour of every day, but that seemed to me some preposterous misunderstanding.
    The family feud settled in with the other mysteries of the world. In fact, somewhat more comfortably, for I liked having a family feud in the family, liked the sound of it, the idea of it, possibly because it never occurred to me that I should avoid the part of the family with which we were feuding. I spent every day of that first August with Martha. We did pretty much what I had always done by myself or with my dog. We sat by the stream that ran across both our properties and put our feet in the water. We walked into the swamp and picked mushrooms, planning to save them to poison someone someday, should that be necessary. And we went to the beach. It was a rocky beach, and we had to scramble down a steep dirt path to get to it, but at low tide there was a great flurry of activity there. Crabs sidled around and gulls dropped clamshells on the rocks and terns dove for the bluefish that churned up the water.
    Because of Martha's advanced age and her genuine urban sophistication, I was immediately in her thrall. She moved very quickly, without hesitation, and I would sometimes watch her, as I watched many things, in a distracted, openmouthed stare that prompted her to give me a poke, as if to wake me, though I was in fact fully, acutely awake, just stunned by her energy, by the way she tore through a day. I followed her, argued with her, resented her. I suppose it was my own admiration that I resented. I was not in the habit of admiring others, only of tolerating them.
    Martha forgave me my resentment. Forgiving suited her. It was her hobby. Perhaps that's why she liked to argue so much. Faults must be identified in order to be forgiven. She prided herself on this generosity. I think, too, that in Martha's eyes, her magnanimity could only be enhanced by her critical nature, for there were always a great many failings and weaknesses requiring forgiveness which came to her attention. There were so many to choose from: even as a child, she had to become something of a connoisseur.
    Everyone around us could be counted on for a readily available and rather decent house wine of flaws, but Martha was democratic enough never to slight the daily, repetitive, and ordinary circumstances that required forbearance. And when someone did offer a glorious burst of the unexpected, the exotic, she pardoned that as well. She loved us, and she suffered us gladly.
    In the same way that Martha forgave others and continued to love them, she was apparently able to forgive her own weakness and to continue to love herself. It was a trait I envied and tried unsuccessfully, as I did with many of Martha's traits, to emulate. Her understanding of her own essential decency accompanied her so amiably through her life, strong and protective. She seemed as safe as a nun.
    We spent week after week walking, sitting, running, and throwing things in all the places in which I'd walked, sat, run, and thrown my whole life. At first, Martha knew nothing about the plants we trampled or the insects we caught. My cosmopolitan cousin listened as I told her that the tadpoles would grow legs and that we might find a mouse's skull in an owl pellet, the full extent of my knowledge of nature, acquired during my naturalist period. She listened not out of interest, though she was sometimes interested; and she interrupted not out of boredom, though she was often bored. I knew that both listening and refusing to listen were gestures, that they were aimed specifically at me, and so I welcomed both equally. They meant that I existed, existed for her, which was the only reason I told her anything to begin with.
    We were both bossy, but Martha was bossy in an abundant, inclusive way, while I tended to be merely imperious. Seeing past my magisterial pronouncements and recognizing the limitations of my own nature lore, she quickly filled the gap, taking books out of the library, carrying a guide to plants