I thought he was yours.” .
Now what would I want with a pet squirrel? she asked. “He’ll be a good pet for a boy. But he would be all wrong for a girl.” She put the animal on the ground and hunkered down beside it. Fishing a piece of candy from a pocket, she said, “Come on. You’ve got to feed him some chocolate if you really want to make friends with him.”
The squirrel plucked the candy from Mark’s hand and nibbled it with obvious pleasure. The boy was also in ecstasy as he gently stroked its flanks and long tail. When the chocolate was gone, the animal sniffed first at Mark and then at Rya; and when it realized there would be no more treats today, it slipped out from between them and dashed toward the trees.
“Hey!” Mark said. He ran after it until he saw that it was much faster than he.
“Don’t worry,” Rya said. “He’ll come back tomorrow, so long as we have some chocolate for him.”
“If we tame him,” Mark said, “can I take him into town next week?”
“We’ll see,” Paul said. He looked at his watch. “If we’re going to spend today in town, we’d better get moving.”
The station wagon was parked half a mile away, at the end of a weed-choked dirt lane that was used by hunters in late autumn and early winter.
True to form, Mark shouted, “Last one to the ear’s a dope!” He ran ahead along the path that snaked down through the woods, and in a few seconds he was out of sight.
Rya walked at Paul’s side.
“That was a very nice thing you did,” he said.
She pretended not to know what he meant. “Getting the squirrel for Mark? It was fun.”
“You didn’t get it for Mark.”
“Sure I did. Who else would I get it for?”
“Yourself,” Paul said. “But when you saw how much it meant to him to have a squirrel of his own, you gave it up.”
She grimaced. “You must think I’m a saint or something! If I’d really wanted that squirrel, I wouldn’t have given him away. Not in a million years.”
“You’re not a good liar,” he said affectionately.
Exasperated, she said, “Fathers!” Hoping he wouldn’t notice her embarrassment, she ran ahead, shouting to Mark, and was soon out of sight beyond a dense patch of mountain laurel.
“Children!” he said aloud. But there was no exasperation in his voice, only love.
Since Annie’s death he had spent more time with the children than he might have done if she had lived-partly because there was something of her in Mark and Rya, and he felt that he was keeping in touch with her through them. He had learned that each of them was quite different from the other, each with his unique outlook and abilities, and he cherished their individuality. Rya would always know more about life, people, and the rules of the game than Mark would. Curious, probing, patient, seeking knowledge, she would enjoy life from an intellectual vantage point. She would know that especially intense passion-sexual, emotional, mental-which none but the very bright ever experience. On the other hand, although Mark would face life with far less understanding than Rya, he was not to be pitied. Not for a moment! Brimming with enthusiasm, quick to laugh, overwhelmingly optimistic, he would live every one of his days with gusto. If he was denied complex pleasures and satisfactions-well, to compensate for that, he would ever be in tune with the simple joys of life in which Rya, while understanding them, would never be able to indulge herself fully without some self-consciousness. Paul knew that, in days to come, each of his children would bring him a special kind of happiness and pride-unless death took them from him.
As if he had walked into an invisible barrier, he stopped in the middle of the trail and swayed slightly from side to side.
That last thought had taken him completely by surprise. When he lost Annie, he had thought for a time that he had lost all that was worth having. Her death made him painfully aware that everything-even deeply felt, strong personal relationships that nothing in life could twist or destroy-was temporary, pawned to the grave. For the past three and a half years, in the back of his mind, a small voice had been telling him to be prepared for death, to expect it, and not to let the loss of Mark or Rya or anyone else, if it came, shatter him as Annie’s death had nearly done. But until now the voice had been almost subconscious, an urgent counsel of which he was only vaguely aware. This was the first time that he had let it pop loose from the subconscious. As it rose to the surface, it startled him. A shiver passed through him from head to foot. He had an eerie sense of precognition. Then it was gone as quickly as it had come.