“I can see you’re angry,” said Umbo, “but believe me, this isn’t the way I spoke the first time I tried this. It was—would have been—about a week from now, and I didn’t come as a vision like this, I came in person.”

“You can do that?” she asked.

“In the past several years, yes, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve changed. So has Loaf.”

“What aren’t you telling me? Spit it out—has he lost a leg?”

“Shut. Up. Now.”

She thought she’d burst with rage at his domineering, dis­respectful attitude.

“I’ve been through this confrontation and everything failed. I tried hearing you out, but when you rage, Madam Leaky, you make yourself angrier and less reasonable. So this is my final attempt. Loaf agrees with me. If you can’t listen and accept what I’m going to tell you, he’s going to figure it’s as if he died on our journey and he’ll never come home to you. So what’s at stake now is this: Can you be silent, or do you want to never see your husband again?”

“Loaf agreed to this? What kind of—”

“If you listen I’ll tell you all the whys. On my second visit to you I actually got to tell you what has changed about him, and you still behaved so badly that Loaf almost gave up then. I was the one who talked him into making another try. In fact, three more tries. Do you understand me, you thick-headed angry woman? Loaf married a woman with a temper but he thought you loved him more than you loved your own rage. Is he right or wrong?”

“Let me chop wood for a minute,” she said. “Can you stand there and wait? I have to . . . I have to get this out of me.”

Umbo nodded and stepped back. He did not disappear.

Leaky set up a short log, picked up the ax, and let fly. Shivers of wood flew in all directions. She set up another, pulverized it, then another, another.

“How many are you going to turn into splinters?” asked Umbo.

“Your turn to shut up! It hasn’t been a minute yet!”

It was probably five minutes, but finally she was exhausted and plopped down onto the ground and leaned her forearms on her knees and covered her face with her hands. “Talk to me,” she said, “while I’m not looking at that smart-mouth face of yours bossing me around.”

“If you listen and then talk to me quietly and reasonably, I won’t boss you around,” said Umbo. “I know Loaf will never be happy if he can’t come home to you, but I also know he won’t come back to you until he knows you’ll give him a chance.”