I kept my eyes on the river and the bright water. She sighed and then started up again.

“I left him with a good father. I thought it was the best thing I could do for him. I didn’t want him to be around the dreadful mess I’d gotten myself into. The dreadful mess I was back then. I wasn’t that much older than you are, and I was so in love. You know what that’s like.”

I didn’t speak. I didn’t dare believe myself one bit like her, at any age.

She sighed. “It’s a terrible thing to be shackled to someone in that way, yes, shackled. Because when you’re in love, that terrible love, you lose yourself, you lose your free will . . .”

She stopped and gave me an unhappy look. “I’m not proud of who I was then, and I hate the idea of disappointing you.”

I stammered out that I couldn’t imagine ever being disappointed, and that seemed to calm her.

“Such love affairs are awful. It’s like a snake lives in your heart.”

She was pointing at the jagged rocks a short distance beyond our feet, and my muscles clenched as I saw a thin shape gliding along one edge. Then it vanished, a flicking movement, gone.

Viridian said, “Don’t worry. It’s going about its own business.”

It was as if she’d conjured the snake with her talk or maybe she’d seen it first and, in that instant, made it into words. In either case it shook me.

“We should go,” I said, standing.

“All right.” She sighed again and stood also. “Even if Boone had those poems? They wouldn’t be enough for him either.”

I made sure we kept to the path the rest of the way. When we reached Viridian’s cabin, she thanked me for my trouble, and said she’d see me later, at the reading.

I had a head full of things to think about as I started back downhill toward the lodge. I suppose I wasn’t aware of myself, let alone of anyone around me. And so it was a complete and unwelcome surprise to see Matt coming toward me when I reached the front porch, but I’m afraid I said out loud, “Oh shit.”

“Will you read my poems now?” The manila envelope in his hand looked damp and much fondled.

“Why is this so important?”

“I just need you to read them.” He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked nervous, squirrelly.

“Do I get to say no?”

“I guess I’m never going to be good enough for you, am I?”

“Dude, I don’t even know you.”

“They’re the best I’ve ever written. Go ahead, make fun. ‘That guy? The one with the face like a stray dog? He did something worthwhile?’”