The Love of a Good Woman

Derek’s book. Well, it was Derek. You know that.”
    Karin said, “Derek and Ann.”
    “Derek and Ann. Yes. And now that reason is gone.”
    That was when Karin said, “Okay if I go up the road and visit Ann?” And Rosemary said, “Sure, go ahead. We don’t have to make up our minds in a hurry, you know. It’s just an idea I had.”
    • • •
    K ARIN walked up the gravel road and wondered what was different. Aside from the clouds, which were never there in her memories of the valley. Then she knew. There were no cattle pasturing in the fields, and because of this the grass had grown up, the juniper bushes had spread out, you could no longer see the water in the creek.
    The valley was long and narrow, with Ann and Derek’s white house at the far end of it. The valley floor was pasture that had been flat and tidy last year with the creek winding cleanly through it. (Ann had rented the land to a man who had Black Angus cattle.) The wooded ridges rose steeply on either side and closed in at the far end, behind the house. The trailer Rosemary rented had originally been put in place for Ann’s parents, who moved down there when the valley filled up with snow in the winter. They had wanted to be nearer to the store, which stood then at the corner of the township road. Now there was nothing but the cement platform with two holes in it where the gas tanks had been and an old bus with flags over the windows, where some hippies were living. They sometimes sat on the platform and waved back solemnly and elaborately to Rosemary as she drove past.
    Derek said they had weed growing in the bushes. But he wouldn’t buy from them, not trusting their security.
    Rosemary refused to smoke with Derek.
    “I’m too turbulent around you,” she said. “I don’t think it would be good.”
    “Suit yourself,” said Derek. “It might help.”
    Neither would Ann smoke. She said she would feel silly. She had never smoked anything; she didn’t even know how to inhale.
    They didn’t know that Derek had let Karin try once. She didn’t know how to inhale either, and he had to teach her. She tried too hard; she inhaled too deeply and had to fight to keep from throwing up. They were out in the barn, where Derek kept all the rocksamples he had collected up on the ridges. Derek tried to steady her by telling her to look at the rocks.
    “Just look at them,” he said. “Look into them. See the colors. Don’t try too hard. Just look and wait.”
    But what calmed her down eventually was the lettering on a cardboard box. There was a pile of cardboard boxes which Ann had packed things in when she and Derek had moved back here from Toronto, a couple of years ago. One of them had a silhouette of a toy battleship on the side, and the word D READNOUGHT . The first part of the word—D READ —was in red lettering. The letters shimmered as if written in neon tubing, and issued a command to Karin that had to do with more than the word’s meaning. She had to dismember it and find the words inside.
    “What are you laughing at?” Derek said, and she told him what she was doing. The words came tumbling out miraculously.
    Read. Red. Dead. Dare. Era. Ear. Are. Add. Adder. “Adder” was the best. It used up all the letters.
    “Amazing,” said Derek. “Amazing Karin. Dread the Red Adder.”
    He never had to tell her not to mention any of this to her mother or to Ann. When Rosemary kissed her that night she sniffed her hair and laughed and said, “God, the smell of it’s everywhere, Derek’s such a dedicated old pothead.”
    This was one of the times when Rosemary was happy. They had been to Derek and Ann’s house to eat supper on the closed-in sun porch. Ann had said, “Come with me, Karin, see if you can help me get the mousse out of the mold.” Karin had followed her, but came back—pretending it was to get the mint sauce.
    Rosemary and Derek were leaning across the table teasing each other, making kissing faces. They never saw her.
    Maybe it was that same night, leaving, that Rosemary laughed at the two chairs set outside the back door. Two old dark-redmetal-tube chairs, with cushions. They faced west, towards the last remnants of the sunset.
    “Those old chairs,” said Ann. “I know they’re a sight. They belonged to my parents.”
    “They’re not even all that comfortable,” said Derek.
    “No, no,” said Rosemary. “They’re beautiful, they’re you. I love them. They just say Derek and Ann. Derek and Ann. Derek and