The Second Coming

secret of success as a lawyer,” “phony,” “radar,” “our new language,” “this gift of yours and mine,” “ours” (this was her favorite), “being above things,” “not being able to get back down to things” (!), “how to reenter the world” (?), “by God?” “by her?” (!!!!!), “your forgetting and my remembering,” “Sutter,” “Sutter was right,” “Sutter was wrong,” “Sutter Vaught.”
    â€œMy Uncle Sutter? I remember him.”
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œWhat about him?”
    â€œNothing much.”
    â€œDid you know him?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWas he crazy and no good like they said?”
    â€œNo. What happened to your sister Val?”
    â€œShe became a nun.”
    â€œI know that. Is she still a nun?”
    â€œYes. The last I heard, which was two or five years ago.”
    â€œTwo or five. I see. Where is she, still in South Alabama?”
    â€œNo, she’s not there.”
    â€œWhere is she?” He was watching her closely.
    â€œShe’s teaching at a parochial school at Pass Christian on the Gulf Coast. The school is run by the Little Eucharistic Sisters of St. Dominic.”
    He was silent for a long time. He seemed to be watching the rain. He put his hand in the small of her back. Oh my, she thought. Lightning flickered. At last he smiled in the lightning.
    â€œWhat?” she said.
    â€œYou remembered it,” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat outrageous name. The Little Sisters of what?”
    â€œThe Little Eucharistic Sisters of St. Dominic.” She clapped her hands. “I did. I remember all about Val. She came to see me when I first got sick. In her old black nun clothes. She put her hands on my head and told me I was going to be fine.”
    â€œShe was right.”
    â€œMaybe. No, not maybe. I’m fine. You feel so good. Me too. The good is all over me, starting with my back. Now I understand how the two work together.”
    â€œWhat two?”
    â€œThe it and the doing, the noun and the verb, sweet sweet love and a putting it to you, loving and hating, you and I.”
    He laughed. “You do, don’t you? What happens to the two?”
    â€œThey become one but not in the sappy way of the saying?”
    â€œWhat way, then?”
    â€œOne plus one equals one and oh boy almond joy.”
    He was laughing. “You’re Sutter turned happy.”
    â€œI want you to be my guardian,” she said. Even though he was not touching her, his words were a kind of touching. Did he intend them so? When he didn’t answer, she went back over his words for the sense of them. “Will you be my guardian?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy did you go down in the cave?” Now his hand was in the small of her back again, with a light firm pressure as if they were dancing.
    â€œWhat?” he said, knitting his brows as if he were trying to remember something.
    â€œI do that,” she said, “I go round and down to get down to myself.”
    â€œI went down and around to get out of myself.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œI don’t know. I can’t remember. Curious. Now that your memory is better, mine is . . . Anyhow, that’s over and done with. The future is what concerns us.”
    â€œYou seem different. Before, when you climbed through the fence and I saw you, you were standing still a long time as if you were listening. Now you seem to know what to do. Was it the cave?”
    â€œThe cave,” he said. She could hardly hear him over the rising din of the storm. Lightning forked directly overhead and a sharp crack came hard upon it. The dog, discomfited and frowning, got up and walked around stiff-legged. It was an electrical storm. Soon the lightning was almost continuous, ripping and cracking in the woods around them. Facets of glass flashed blue and white. It was like living inside a diamond. He seemed not to notice her or the storm. His eyes were open and unblinking. The hand behind his head was open, the middle finger touched her shoulder, which she bent close to him, still warming him, now a touch, now a jab, but he could have been poking his own knee. The finger moved as if it were conducting music she couldn’t hear. Nor could she hear what he said in the racket. He was talking in a low voice. She strained against him. Was he talking to