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Show 31 "Please - my God - Hunt!" Leah watched through the bedroom window as Hunt loaded the sled and toboggan into the back of the car. He looked so incredibly sad. He looked so pained. She saw him slam the station wagon door shut, then punch a garage support. If he wasn't now, he would soon: cry. He had held it in from her for too many years. All I do, she thought, again and again, is cause him pain. I know that. I know that. But,:Hunt . . . Hunt, Jesus: What about myself? I have spent all his money, Leah thought. I have not given him love. I have not tried, because I was scared, but, yes, not tried, I admit it, to enter his world. I'll go away. I'll just leave. I won't take any more things from him. I don't need that much. Just some clothes. And the quilt. Leah packed a suitcase. She took the quilt from their bed. The only time in her life that she had ever been away from home for any more than a week was to marry Hunt. But then Hunt became her second home. Leah took the suitcase and the folded quilt downstairs. She felt cold. She started shivering in the empty, farm-large New Hampshire house. She felt hungry, but had no desire at all to eat. And she couldn't control her crying. I don't want to be here when he gets back, she thought. But, as a sum of the slow, painful months since fall, even her legs felt useless and she couldn't move. Maybe I could walk somewhere, she thought. She put on dark glasses because her eyes stung. Maybe I could hitch. I could hitch to Concord possibly, then |
