I had forgotten a flashlight, and when I started to walk, quietly, trying not to add any human sound, I tripped on something and fell. Abruptly there was silence, everything listening to me. The frogs and crickets, undisturbed all this time, knew there was something now that did not belong, and they were watchful, wary. I lay sprawled on the ground, shocked by the fall and the sudden silence, and then I began to laugh out loud; tomorrow and all the next days the animals and insects and plants and I would grow used to each other, and they wouldn’t be silent when they heard me, and I laughed because it was perfect.

I pulled myself up off the ground. I wanted to shout at the frogs, tell them it was all right, they could start their scratching songs again, but that would be pointless; they would start when they felt safe. I groped my way back into the cabin and turned on the lights. The kitchen was very bright. I realized I hadn’t eaten, and decided I was hungry. Something hot, I thought. Soup.

While it heated I put away the pots and pans, set detergent beside the sink, put out dish towels, and when I was finished the kitchen looked almost occupied. I would hang the pots on hooks, I decided. They were copper; they would add something.

I ate in front of the fireplace, then went back to the kitchen to wash my dishes. I kept feeling spasms of joy, instants of realizing, and it happened when I saw the bowl and the saucepan to be washed, all there was of my meal, just my own, from now on.

I walked through the other rooms, thinking of what I might do with them, and I could see them as I wanted them to be when I was finished. I knew they would be slightly shabby, and I knew they would not be perfect, that some things would be crooked and others wouldn’t fit right, but it was my place and I could have crooked things.

I was very tired, exhausted suddenly from the effort to be here, so that now that it was completed and I was here, I could let go.

I unpacked my clothes and hung them up. I put sheets and blankets on the mattress, and changed into a nightgown.

The mattress was directly beneath the window. I lay there for a while, looking up at what I could see of the moon through the branches of the willow. Everything in the world was right, because this window and the willow and the moon were the world.

When I woke up, the sun was shining on my body, and it was warm.

9

9

Oddly, there were not the feelings of letdown, of doubt or panic, that should have been expected. Although they might come later. Would they come later?