So he did and she said, “I want to go to Up-by-Canada.”

“Vermont,” he said.

“Ver-mont,” she said, breaking the word in two parts and he thought Yes that’s right, that verde monte, that old green hill of Champlain—his Randolph Academy brought back clear by the girl’s usage—but he only said, “It’s a long ways from here.”

“Already walked one of those. I can walk another.” Then, “Less you don’t want me to.”

Norman looked away from her now, looked down at his hands joined together between his knees, his elbows and forearms flat on his thighs, and was quiet until his voice came and then he said, “I don’t know.” He could hear her breathing beside him, could feel slight movement in her shoulder against his and felt a patience from her as she waited for him and he knew what for and didn’t know how to say it and so only said, “I don’t barely know you.”

“Course you don’t,” she said. “What it takes to know a person you tell me soon’s you know. I don’t know, not me. You got brothers, sisters?”

“Sisters,” he said, “three of em.”

But she kept right on talking as if he’d said nothing. “Your mama and daddy. You known those people all your life but you don’t know what they really all about inside. And you think they all gonna sit around waiting for you to know, Norman? You think even they themselves know? Not like they like to, I tell you that. You and me sitting here strange as can be to one another but here we are, ain’t that right? And what you call that? You call that a accident? I walked maybe three hundred miles to meet up with you Norman and didn’t even know it was you till I seen you laying there under that briar clump and how’d I know then that you’d wake up to be you? I didn’t. You know what I’m telling you Norman?”

All he could do was nod his head, just once.

She said, “I look at you, you know what I see? Norman?”

“I got no idea.”

“I see a man gentle right down in his soul. All the way down.”

Then she was quiet and when she spoke again her voice had lost a little edge and he heard it right away, a little less certainty and he felt this loss in his chest like hot water. She said, “So me. You look at me what do you see? Norman?”

His face furrowed like a spring field, wanting to get this just right. He had no idea what to say and kept looking at her hoping she’d wait for him, hoping she’d be patient. Hoping he’d find his way not out but through this.