So we lay, silent, from time to time staring at something that drew our attention, like the fireflies that met on the grass and mated, and the whispering leaves, and the floating clouds, and the play of the moonlight on the water. The night seemed enchanted and set me to thinking again of nature, and all its strange ways. Though I didn't understand fully many of its ways, why I dreamed as I did at night now, why I woke up throbbing and yearning for some fulfillment that I could never reach.
I was glad Chris had persuaded me into coming. It was wonderful to be lying on grass again, feeling cool and refreshed, and most of all, feeling fully alive again.
"Chris," I began tentatively, afraid to spoil the soft beauty of this star-filled moonlit night, "where do you think our mother is?"
He kept right on staring at Polaris, the north star.
"I have no idea where she is," he answered finally.
"Don't you have any suspicions?"
"Sure. Of course I do."
"What are they?"
"She could be sick."
"She's not sick; Momma's never sick."
"She could be away on a business trip for her father."
"Then why didn't she come and tell us she was going, and when to expect her back?"
"I don't know!" he said irritably, like I was spoiling the evening for him, and of course he couldn't know, any more than I could.
"Chris, do you love and trust her as much as you used to?"
"Don't ask me questions like that! She's my mother. She's all we've got, and if you expect me to lie here and say mean things about her, I'm not going to do it! Wherever she is tonight, she's thinking of us, and she's coming back. She'll have a perfectly good reason for going away and staying so long, you can count on that."
I couldn't say to him what I was really thinking, that she could have found time to come in and tell us of her plans--for he knew that as well as I did.
There was a husky tone to his voice that came about only when he was feeling pain--and not the physical kind. I wanted to take away the hurt I'd inflicted with my questions. "Chris, on TV, girls my age, and boys your age--they start to date. Would you know how to act on a date?"
"Sure, I've watched a lot on TV."
"But watching isn't the same as doing."
"Still it gives you the general idea of what to do, and what to say. And besides, you're still too young to date guys."
"Now let me tell you something, Mr. Big Brain, a girl of my age is actually one year older than a boy of your age."
"You're crazy!"
"Crazy? I read that fact in a magazine article, written by an authority on the subject--a doctor of psychology," I said, thinking he was sure to be impressed. "He said girls mature emotionally much quicker than boys do."
"The author of that article was judging all mankind by his own immaturity."
"Chris, you think you know everything--and nobody knows everything!"
He turned his head and met my eyes and scowled, like he used to do so often. "You're right," he agreed pleasantly. "I know only what I read, and what I'm feeling inside has me as mystified as any first-grader. I'm mad as hell at Momma because of what she's done, and I'm feeling so many different things, and I don't have a man to talk them over with." He rose on an elbow to stare down in my face. "I wish it wasn't taking your hair so long to grow back. I wish now I hadn't used the scissors . . . didn't do any good, anyway."
It was better when he didn't say anything to make me think of Foxworth Hall. I just wanted to look up at the sky and feel the fresh night air on my wet skin. My pajamas were of thin white batiste, scattered all over with rosebuds, and edged with lace. They clung to me like a second skin, just as Chris's white jockey shorts clung to him.
"Let's go now, Chris."
Reluctantly, he got up and stretched out a hand. "Another swim?"
"No. Let's go back."