Free The Stories of Richard Bausch by Richard Bausch Page A

laughing, filled with an illicit-feeling hunger for each other.
    Now she did what she could with the kitchen, reeling. Her own crashing-down fall startled her, as if it were someone else. “Jack?” she said. Oh, yes—Jack. Her once friend and lover, a world away. But all would be well. She could believe it now. She went out into the yard, looked at the trees, the late afternoonsun pouring through with breezes, life’s light and breath. The great wide world. She felt good. She felt quite reasonable. Nothing out of order. Life would provide.
    She started across the span of grass leading to the trees, confused about where home was. She sat down in the grass, then lay back. When they returned, the Meltzers would see. She would have to explain to them, show them the necessity. “Honesty is what we owe each other.” She’d always told the children that, hadn’t she? She had lived by it. Hadn’t she? “Be true, my darlings,” she had said. “Always, always tell the truth. Even to yourself.” That was what she’d said. She was Mrs. Porter. That was what she was known for.

GLASS MEADOW
    For William Kotzwinkle and Charles Baxter
and with thanks to Bill Kimble
    Imagine a shady mountain road in early summer. 1954. Dappled sunlight on tall pines, the lovely view of a valley with a bright river rambling through it. And here comes a lone car, its tires squealing a little with each winding of the road. A lime-green ‘51 Ford, with a finish that exactly reproduces the trees in its polished depths. In the front seat of this automobile are the eccentric parents of Patrick and Elvin Johnston, brothers. I’m Patrick, twelve and a half years old. Elvin is a year and a half younger. We’re monitoring how close we keep coming to the big drop-off into the tops of trees. We’re subject to the whims of the people in the front seat, whose names are Myra and Lionel.
    To their faces, we call them Mom and Dad.
    Myra is thirty-six, stunningly beautiful, with black hair, dark brown eyes, flawless skin, and—as we have heard it expressed so often by our ratty, no-account friends at school—a body like Marilyn Monroe. Lionel is younger, only thirty-four—tall, lean, rugged-looking, with eyes that are the exact light blue of a summer sky, and blond hair just thin enough at thecrown of his head to make him look five years older. He’s sharp, confident, quick, and funny. He makes Myra laugh, and her laugh has notes in it that can alter the way blood flows through your veins.
    Elvin and I have come to believe they’re both a bit off, and there’s plenty of evidence to support our thesis.
    But we love them, and they, in their way, love us. It is very important that one does not lose sight of this fact.
    So.
    We’re on this mountain road, wending upward in the squeal of tires and the wail of radio jazz, while back home in Charlottesville lawyers are putting together the necessary papers to have us evicted from our rented house. The rental is our seventh in the last eight years. Our destination today is a hunting cabin owned by a childhood friend of Myra’s. We haven’t packed a scrap of food or very much in the way of clothing or other supplies.
    We woke up with Myra standing in the doorway of our room. “You’re not ready yet,” she said, “are you?”
    It was still dark out. “What?” I said. “What?”
    “Who is it?” Elvin said.
    “We’re leaving for our vacation this morning.”
    “Vacation?” I said. She might as well have said we were heading out for a life of missionary work in Pakistan.
    Myra and Lionel have never been the type of people to take vacations, per se. They’ve always had a way of behaving as though they were already in the middle of some kind of—well, furlough, let’s call it.
    One Sunday morning as we were coming out of church, we saw Father Bauer backing out of the rectory door with a big box. Myra hurried over there, we thought to help him, but she stood silent behind him as he slowly backed