Chapter Nine, Part One

The next morning, after breakfast, Robert and Sophie put Amalia's sandwiches and cookies into their saddlebags, checked that their canteens were full, and set out on a trail heading east. According to a primitive map of the area, plotted by students over the years, this trail would take them past some abandoned quarrying equipment and an old stone hut.

Having some known points of interest along the route gave Robert a sense of purpose as he guided his horse along the path. Around him, the golden morning light filtered through the pines and aspens, casting shadows on the soft dry leaves of last fall, while birds called to each other from the high branches, as pleased with the bright spring day as Sophie was, sitting her horse on the trail ahead and looking all about in wonderment.

It was this sense of wonder that Robert puzzled over. It was a truism, of course, that a child could teach an adult to see the world with fresh eyes, but the ability to be charmed and amazed by life was something Diana never lost, and Robert suspected that Sophie would keep it all her life as well. It was as central to her identity as it had been to her mother's.

How he wished he could find the same fascination in a feather or a flower! Or the same curiosity about the movement of an ant across a rock. He could see these things when they were pointed out, but on his own, he was no more likely to notice the shape of a cloud than he would the shape of a stain on his shoe. It had been Diana who had shown him by example that birdsong wasn't any sweeter for knowing the Latin names of the birds, or a breeze more refreshing for being able to calculate its speed in miles per hour.

"A butterfly!" Sophie pointed.

Robert squinted at the tiny yellow butterfly sunning itself on a nearby rock. Had it not been for Sophie, he would've ridden right past it.

"I saw some like that yesterday, too."

"Maybe we should look them up when we get back. I'm sure they have a book at the school."

Sophie shrugged like it was all the same to her. "I just think they're pretty."

Of course she did. Robert felt annoyed with himself. Sophie needed him to share the simple pleasures of life, not analyze them. Analysis was his place of safety, though. Anything that could be assessed or quantified was something he could manage. To let things go unnamed or unnumbered was to leave things in chaos. Diving into that chaos was like jumping off a cliff and hoping the air would hold you up.

That was what marriage to Diana had been: a terrifying leap into a world where the only rule was that rules could change. Being the calm center of Diana's cheerful maelstrom was an intoxicating experience, and then, after fifteen years of heady groundlessness, he discovered that gravity had been waiting for him all along.

What had he really expected, though? From the day her name appeared in an official dispatch as a recruit with potential, she had managed to slip away from him every time he got close. That he had been able to marry her, even bigamously, was a gift. To have had as much time with her as he did was nothing short of a miracle.

Robert glanced around again. They were on a high ridge overlooking a valley of green meadows. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and Sophie was on fire with delight. Through all its wild magnificence, though, Robert perceived the outlines of the inevitable changes nature would bring to this landscape, and he wished he had his trigonometry book.