Free The Evolution of Jane by Cathleen Schine Page B

in her pocket, soon recognizing birds by song and feather, trees by bark and leaves and evening silhouette.
    I was stunned by this city energy turned toward my sleepy woods. She had the excessive enthusiasm of an arriviste, and though I corrected her whenever I could, I frequently was reduced to grammatical quibbles, as I was so obviously outclassed in the area of flora and fauna. But when we fought over rules and the meaning of words, like two tiny pedants, our tiffs took on the form of ardent cordiality more than anything else. Until Martha, no one had bothered to argue with me. My parents had smiled indulgently at my intellectual limitations, as if I were a fool or an immigrant who hadn't learned the language yet, or a child. My brothers had veered sharply between telling me to shut up and patting my head. My friends at school cried when I argued with them. But for Martha and me, no subject was safe, no statement, no observation. Was it more dangerous to cross the street at dusk wearing gray or wearing black? We debated for weeks, marshaling our tautological arguments with increasing passion and certainty. It didn't matter that neither of us owned a black garment, or a gray one. It didn't matter that we weren't allowed to cross streets alone anyway. It didn't matter that at dusk Martha had to go inside for her dinner and her bath. It didn't even matter who won. It was during that August, in the midst of our playing and bickering, that I first understood what loneliness was, and understood that I had been lonely, a little lonely, until my cousin and friend Martha Barlow showed up in the country on her imaginary horse to rescue the house next door.
    In the beginning, in Barlow, I would meet Martha in the sort of no-man's-land between our two properties. My mother had not forbidden me to see Martha, but I was afraid she might, and I kept a low profile. I did not go to Martha's house, imagining her parents to be as fiercely alienated from the other side of the family as my mother was, and also feeling it would be a betrayal of our side. I asked Martha what she knew about the feud, and she said there was no feud, it was all my side of the family's fault, her father had told her so.
    We met at the stone wall shaded by the crooked weeping willow tree. The shadows surrounded us, deep and protective. I realize now that my mother must have known where I was all this time. Or at least whom I was with. But she never let on. Perhaps she thought Martha and I would tire of each other. Perhaps she couldn't think of anything, really, to say about it. It would not have been like my mother to forbid me to play with a perfectly nice little girl next door, even if her ancestors were treacherous criminals. It was more like her to let me imagine that she would forbid me if she found out.
    As the weeks wore on, Martha and I sometimes forgot about the feud altogether. Martha would even come and sit on my porch while I went in to get peaches or cookies. Then one day Martha used the bathroom, another day Martha and I watched TV. Then Martha said hello to my mother, who absently said hello back, walked
away,
turned around, held Martha's chin in her hand, stared at her for a moment, shrugged, and went on her way. After several more days, Martha stayed for dinner. Next Martha spent the night. And so it was tacitly, gradually, agreed upon that the family feud did not have to extend to my generation.
    The feud was not even mentioned, except once, when I again tried to bring Martha with us to visit Aunt Anna.
    "We don't know that side of the family," my mother said, cold and ridiculous, but quite serious, I could see. Then she told me stories of her childhood in Cuba, which she often did when she wanted to change the subject.
    "When I was a girl," she said, "we would go to the market to buy a chicken, and it was not the supermarket, you know, but a big outdoor market. My mother would pick out a chicken, a live chicken, and the chicken man would swing it