That evening, Dice told us to push the meeting room chairs against the wall. “By special request from Sara,” he said, “we will pray.” The family murmured excitedly, exchanging smiles. We linked hands and spread out into a circle.

Dice said, “What should we pray for?”

“Love!” Sara called.

“Love,” Dice said. “Draw love through you and upward.” He breathed in deeply. “Love,” he said again. Another deep breath, and this time the family joined in. Breath, then love, breath, then love.

“If you’re not rolling with it, you’re rolling under it,” Dice shouted.

The room seemed to belly like the rainbow parachute we’d played with in elementary school. The whole class would swing the parachute up, then rush to sit underneath it, and in our swiftly collapsing chamber, we’d look around the circle at each other’s faces, made strange by the shifting polychrome shadows, till our ceiling sighed down onto our heads.

“Love.” I had only just begun to think about love—about Bay, of course, Bay pulling my hair down by the fire and pressing his mouth on mine—when the pace picked up. I couldn’t catch my breath. It was like being caught beneath a train. It chugged over me. Love! Love! Love! Light sparked in my head, like the flashes thrown off by static. I blinked desperately. Several people collapsed, and I did too, against the fragrant bright floor. The dizziness, the love, it overtook me.

I didn’t remember getting into bed. In the morning, the family rose in nightgowns and one-piece long johns. To my love-addled eyes, they looked like angels. In silent grace, they engaged in the act of dressing. At breakfast, everyone seemed kinder and gentler than ever. People who had never spoken to me—people with names like Osha, Terra, Ursina, Cuke—touched my hands. I felt that whatever the lesson was, I’d learned it, because I’d thrown my body into it.

* * *

Bay returned, as we’d expected, bringing a new couple to join us. I was in the stables and he came to find me.

“Did you miss me?” I said.

“Sure,” he said, the word Isaac used to use, not the same as yes. But I knew he had no other reason to be in the stables. He helped me carry pails of water to the troughs in the smaller pens where the hose didn’t reach. He took two minutes for what took me twenty. He understood the processes of stars, trees, and animals, and the way to wring out a living from the dirt, and this understanding was what I loved. He was a part of the landscape, simple and protean.

“Why did you bring back a couple?” I asked. “I thought couples weren’t allowed.”

“They wanted to come.” He shrugged. “At least, the guy did.” I felt a quick lap of anger. I wanted the same rules for everyone.