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“Where else is there for a man in Illinois to go to die?”
“Well,” he said and paused. “Well, there’s always the open highway.”
“And be run down, of course; I’d forgotten that.”
“No, no!” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “The empty side roads leading nowhere, everywhere, through night forests, wilderness, to distant lakes....”
“Now, you’re not going to go rent a canoe, are you, and paddle off? Remember the time you tipped over and almost drowned at Fireman’s Pier?”
“Who said anything about canoes?”
“You did! Pagan islanders, you said, paddling off into the great unknown.”
That’s the South Seas! Here a man has to strike off on foot to find his natural source, seek his natural end. I might walk north along the Lake Michigan shore, the dunes, the wind, the big breakers there.”
“Willie, Willie,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Oh, Willie, Willie, what will I do with you?”
He lowered his voice. “Just let me have my head,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, quietly. “Yes.” And tears came to her eyes.
“Now, now,” he said.
“Oh, Willie …” She looked a long while at him. “Do you really think with all your heart you’re not going to live?”
He saw himself reflected, small but perfect, in her eye, and looked away uneasily. “I thought all night about the universal tide that brings man in and takes him out. Now it’s morning and good-by.”
“Good-by?” She looked as if she’d never heard the word before.
His voice was unsteady. “Of course, if you absolutely insist I stay, Mildred—”
“No!” She braced herself and blew her nose. “You feel what you feel; I can’t fight that!”
“You sure?” he said.
“You’re the one that’s sure, Willie,” she said. “Get on along now. Take your heavy coat; the nights are cold.”
“But—” he said.
She ran and brought his coat and kissed his cheek and drew back quickly before he could enclose her in his bear hug. He stood there working his mouth, gazing at the big armchair by the fire. She threw open the front door. “You got food?”
“I won’t need …” He paused. “I got a boiled ham sandwich and some pickles in my case. Just one. That’s all I figured I’d …”
And then he was out the door and down the steps and along the path toward the woods. He turned and was going to say something but thought better of it, waved, and went on.
“Now, Will,” she called. “Don’t overdo. Don’t make too much distance the first hour! You get tired, sit down! You get hungry, eat! And …”
But here she had to stop and turn away and get out her handkerchief.
A moment later she looked up the path and it looked as though nobody has passed there in the last ten thousand years. It was so empty she had to go in and shut the door.
Nighttime, nine o’clock, nine-fifteen, stars out, moon round, house lights strawberry-colored through the curtains, the chimney blowing long comet tails of fireworks, sighing warm. Down the chimney, sounds of pots and pans and cutlery, fire on the hearth, like a great orange cat. In the kitchen, the big iron cookstove full of jumping flames, pans boiling, bubbling, frying, vapors and steams in the air. From time to time the old woman turned and her eyes listened and her mouth listened, wide, to the world outside this house, this fire, and this food.
Nine-thirty and, from a great distance away from the house, a solid whacking, chunking sound.
The old woman straightened up and laid down a spoon.
Outside, the dull solid blows came again and again in the moonlight. The sound went on for three or four minutes, during which she hardly moved except to tighten her mouth or her fists with each solid chunking blow. When the sounds stopped, she threw herself at the stove, the table, stirring, pouring, lifting, carrying, setting down.
