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Show 128 "Yes, it does," Leah said. Her voice was tight and quavering. "But then, life with you . . ." She stopped short, pulled back from the final wounding. Hunt felt she regretted it. He bent and kissed her forehead. "New vistas of incredulity," Leah muttered, and it seemed the phrase was private and for herself. Hunt bent again and kissed, this time, Leah's eyelids. "Don't worry," he said. He wanted it to sound like a promise. But it fell short. He tried recovery, another promise: "Things . . . Things will . . . I think that I may even have reassured them. Next door. The Schoefields. Maybe . . . maybe it's even all an opportunity." "Opportunity? You mean the front-walk delivery and supply of fruits and vegetables?" Hunt tried to smile. "Listen - if you need me . . ." But Leah's jaw was set, and Hunt saw his line, slightly transformed -- If I need him! -- flash like ironic sheet lightning in her head. Still, he finished. "If you need me -- I'll be in my studio." He squeezed her arm. "What will it be next time, do you think?" she asked behind him: "A watermelon?" Inside his studio, Hunt stood in yet another posture of regret. Regret, my old companion, he had once said to himself, alone in the dark at the edge of his New Hampshire lake, My old companion - Regret. It always seemed, lived-past: a thing of adolescence or youth - until, of course, once again it knocked, came to a window, or was found, bunched in tinfoil in his refrigerator: |
