Forty Days and Nights: Love Stories. 9. In Memoriam

She unrolled the map and smoothed it carefully on the table, setting candles on each of its corners to hold it open. She found the place, dark and roughened a bit from all the times she had found it before, from her touch and her weight and her pain. In fact--she closed her eyes...opened them--yes, she could find it by touch alone.

Of course she could.

She left one finger on the spot and set another on the other place, the place that was her own place, this house, this garden, this town, this place she was now. One finger there, one finger here. Touch, touch. She raised her shoulder, catching the tears on her sleeve before they could fall onto the map and blur and blister it. Touch. Touch. She set her thumb next to the finger that held her own spot on the map, then stepped her finger over her thumb. Finger, thumb, finger, thumb, walking them in the thready lines that were streets and roads between her spot of the map and the place marked by the finger on her other hand. Finger, thumb, finger. This was the strange thing, the amazing thing about the map. Her thumb set on its side or her finger set straight down covered just the map space of a day's journey on foot. Thumb, finger, thumb, finger. She had walked and walked this route with her fingers every day for the past year and here she was at the start of a new year, another year, the next year. Thumb, finger, thumb. A twelve month and one day, sang in her head. That was a strange thing as well. Today, this day, marked a year and a day and last night, the last night of that dreadful year, his horse had come home. Finger, thumb, finger, thumb. Strange and unbelievable and lovely and terrible. She had marked the days, marked every day and wondered what would become of her, what would happen inside her when the year swung round again if she had heard no more, nothing definite, nothing solid, nothing real. Finger, thumb. And then his horse, standing quietly outside the gate in the evening light, waiting for her to come, to see. Finger, thumb, finger, thumb, finger. Twenty five. One quarter of one hundred. Not even a month, she whispered to herself, not a whole month.

She jumped up and hurried to her chair by the fire, came back with a needle and bright red thread. She took two of the candles off the map and set them aside then brought the needle carefully up through the map, up through the spot that was her place, the place the horse had come, the place of this house and this table and these candles in the dark. She took one stitch, the width of her thumb set on its side, then another and another. While she stitched the streets and roads she pondered and remembered. What was it? What was she to know, to do now? Twenty five bright red stitches, twelve on the bottom of the map and thirteen on the top. She ran her fingers over them, from one end to the other while she stared at the candles. Touch, touch. She would go in the morning.

She stood with the key in her hand, arrested in the act of putting it into her pocket. If I can't make it, she had thought, if I can't do it, as she had started to put the key into her pocket. She caught herself. She held the key, then thought she would hide it, not take it with her, but she paused again, feeling the whole world hang and twist as she stared past the key in her hand. If I can't make it, she thought, if I can't do it, and she thought of candles in the darkness and an empty bed and the horse she had only a quarter of an hour ago given to her brother. She thought of all the days there are in a year and she turned, walking swiftly to the back of her house. She moved the heavy wooden cover and dropped the key into the well. She was gone before it hit the water.

She was three months coming to him.

Twenty five stitches in her map took her three months and now she was here, standing in this empty field, waiting for the reason she had come all this long way to catch up to her. This was the place on the map she could find without looking and she had come here without seeing anything before her but the road. Now she was here, in this peaceful field where the grass had grown up over everything and nothing happened anymore and no one ever came now and there was no one and nothing anywhere, anywhere. Her basket was lost, her pockets were empty and the key to her house was lying under water at the center of the world. She knelt on the grass, and then she lay down on the grass and she cried and cried and cried. When he came that was where he found her.

I'm so sorry, he whispered so as not to startle her, I never thought you could be here so soon. Oh, my girl, my girl, you came, and he held her and held her. She clung to him so he had to pull her arms away just to get a good look at her. He was laughing, too, and crying, and he asked her about the horse. Did he find you? Did he get all the way home? he asked and she said, of course he did, and buried herself against him again. Oh, you're so lovely, he said, I could hardly believe after a while that you could really be so lovely as I remembered. She laughed at him, knowing herself after the months of coming to him, knowing the sight she must be, but he just smiled and smiled. You came, he said, you came. I waited, she said, for you to call me, and she cried again. He was sober, sad now. Yes, he said, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I sent the horse as soon as I could think again, it was the only thing I could think to do, but, well, he got distracted. Oh, I'm sorry. He's only a horse. Where is he? he asked and she told him how she had given the horse away. He was astonished. He could still be astonished. But I intended you to ride him! he said, do you mean to tell me you walked all this way? He was never angry anymore and he'd have been too happy now, anyway, but he was almost angry. Well, she said lifting her chin, it hardly seems fair, does it? What would have happened to him now? It hardly seems fair to him, even if he is only a horse, after all that. He shook his head and held her, but he had to admit it hardly seemed fair. Still, he said, we could have sent him off, someone would have been happy to find him, to take care of him. He's a good horse, he said. He held her face, looked carefully into her eyes. Sweet girl, are you...are you ready? he asked. Yes, she said steadily, her hands over his, trying to smile away the doubt in his eyes, it's been, oh, it's been such a dark year. Yes, he said brokenly, yes, for me too. Oh, my girl. You came. He held her close and so tightly she did not breathe at all, then suddenly put his hands on her shoulders, setting her firmly away from him, turning his face from her, and she was frightened for the first time. Three months she had been coming to him, she had given away the horse and the key lay at the bottom of the well. He stood and looked down at her, hands clenched, eyes wider and wider, then she saw him come to his decision, and he held out his hand. If I can't make it, she thought, if I can't do it, and her heart beat like it would burst. She kept her eyes on his as she gravely, deliberately, set her icy hand into his warm one and at the same time she lifted her other hand high above her head, releasing the map into the wind, where it fluttered and twisted above them, a line of red stitches showing bright against the soft white paper.