"Oh, you’re making that up!" Her head twisted to face his profile.

"I am not. I read about it in one of the books Miss Beasley gave me. Flower fidelity."

"Really?"

"Really."

He lay as he did every night during their talks-on his back with his hands behind his head. Silent, she regarded him, digesting this new snippet of information. At length she squared her head on the pillow and fixed her attention on the pale glow overhead. "I guess that’s not so unusual. Some birds practice fidelity, too. To each other. The eagles, the Canadian geese-they mate for life."

"Interesting."

"Mm-hmm."

"I’ve never seen an eagle," Will mused.

"Eagles are…" Eleanor gestured ceilingward-"Majestic."-then let her hands settle to her stomach again. A smile tipped her lips. "When I was a girl I used to see a golden eagle in a huge dead tree down in the swamp near Cotton Creek. If I were a bird, I’d want to be an eagle."

"Why?" Will turned to study her.

"Because of something I read once."

"What?"

"Oh… nothing." She twined her fingers and looked down her chest at them.

"Tell me." He sensed her reluctance but kept his gaze steady, unrelenting. After some time she sent Will a quick peek.

"Promise you won’t laugh?"

"I promise."

For several seconds she concentrated on aligning her thumbnails precisely, then finally quoted shyly.

"He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls."

She paused before adding, "Somebody named Tennyson wrote that."

In that moment Will saw a new facet of his wife. Fragile. Impressionable. Touched by poets’ words, articulate combinations of words such as she herself never used.

"It’s beautiful," he said softly.

Her thumbnails clicked together as she vacillated between the wish to hide her feelings and reveal more. The latter won as she swallowed and added softly, "Nobody laughs at eagles."

Oh, Elly, Elly, who hurt you so bad? And what would it take to make you forget it? Will rolled to face her and braced his jaw on a fist. But she wouldn’t turn, and her cheeks burned brightly.

"Did somebody laugh at you?" His voice was deep with caring. A tear plumped in the corner of her eye. Understanding her chagrin at its arrival, Will pretended not to notice. He waited motionlessly for her answer, studying the ridge of her nose, the outline of her compressed lips. When she spoke it was an evasion.

"For a long time I didn’t know what azure meant."

He watched as her throat contracted and the florid spots in her cheeks stood out like pennies on an open palm. His hand burned to touch her-her chin maybe, turn it to face him so she would see that he cared and would never ridicule her. He wanted to take her close, cradle her head and rub her shoulder and say, "Tell me… tell me what it is that hurts so bad, then we’ll work at getting you over it." But every time he considered touching her his insecurities reared up to confront and confine him. Woman killer, jailbird, she’ll jump and yelp if you touch her. On the first day you were warned to keep your distance.

So he stayed on his own side of the bed with one wrist riveted to his hip, the other folded beneath an ear. But what he couldn’t relay by touch he put into his expressive voice.

"Elly?" It came out softly, the abbreviated name falling from his lips as an endearment. Their gazes collided, her green eyes still luminous with unshed tears, his brown ones filled with understanding. "Nobody’s laughing now."

Suddenly everything in her yearned toward him.

Touch me, she thought, like nobody ever did before, like I touch the boys when they feel bad. Make it not important that I’m plain and unpretty and more pregnant than I wish I was right now. You’re the man, Will-don’t you see? A man’s got to reach first.

But he couldn’t. Not first.

Touch me, he thought, my arm, my hand, a finger. Let me know it’s all right for me to have these feelings for you. Nobody’s cared enough to touch me for years and years. But you’ve got to reach first, don’t you see? Because of how you felt about him, and what I am, what I did, what we agreed to the first day I came here.

In the end, neither of them moved. She lay with her hands atop her swollen stomach, her heart hammering frantically, afraid of rejection, ridicule, the things she had been seasoned by life to expect.

He lay feeling unlovable due to his spotty past and the fact that no woman including his own mother had found him worth the effort, so why should Elly?

And so they talked and gazed during those lanternlit nights of acquaintance-crazy Eleanor and her ex-con husband-learning respect for each other, wondering when and if that first seeking might happen, each hesitant to reach out for what they both needed.


The honey was all bottled. The hives received fresh coats of white paint, their bases-as suggested in print-a variety of colors to guide the workers back from their forays. When Will left the orchard for the last time, the hives held enough honey to feed the bees through the winter.

He packed away the extractor in an outbuilding until the spring honey run began and announced that night at supper, "I’ll be going to town tomorrow to sell the honey. If there’s anything you need, make a list."

She asked for only two things: white flannel to make diapers and a roll of cotton batting.


The following day when Will stepped through the library doors, Gladys Beasley was immersed in lecturing a cluster of schoolchildren on the why and wherefore of the card catalogue. With her back to Will, she looked like a dirigible on legs. Packed into a bile-green jersey dress, wearing club-heeled shoes and the same cap of precise blue ringlets against a skull of baby pink, she gestured with her head and spoke in her inimitable pedantic voice.

"The Dewey Decimal System was named after an American librarian named Melvil Dewey over seventy years ago. James," she digressed, "quit picking your nose. If it needs attention, please ask to be dismissed to the lavatory. And in the future please see to it that you bring your handkerchief with you to school. Under the Dewey Decimal System books are divided into ten groups…" The lecture continued as if the remonstration had not interrupted.

Meanwhile, Will stood with an elbow braced on the checkout desk, waiting, enjoying. A little girl pirouetted on her heels-left, right-gazing at the overhead lights as if they were comets. A red-headed boy scratched his private rear quarters. Another girl balanced on one foot, holding the opposite ankle as high against her buttock as she could force it. Since coming to live with Elly and the boys Will had grown to appreciate children for their naturalness.

"… any subject at all. If you’ll follow me, children, we’ll begin with the one hundreds." As Miss Beasley turned to herd stragglers, she caught sight of Will lounging against the desk. Involuntarily her face brightened and she touched her heart. Realizing what she’d done, she dropped and clasped her hand and recovered her customary prim expression. But it was too late-she was already blushing.

Will straightened and tipped his hat, pleasantly shocked by her telling reaction, warmed more than he’d have thought possible by the idea of such an unlikely woman getting flustered over him. He’d been doing everything in his power to get his wife to react that way but he’d certainly never expected it here.

"Excuse me, children." Miss Beasley touched two heads in passing. "You may explore through the one hundreds and the two hundreds." As she approached Will the tinge of pink on her cheeks became unmistakable and he grew more amazed.

"Mornin’, Miss Beasley."

"Good morning, Mr. Parker."

"Busy today," he observed, glancing at the children.

"Yes. Mrs. Gardner’s second grade."

"Brought you something." He held out a pint jar of honey.

"Why, Mr. Parker!" she exclaimed, touching her chest again.

"From our own hives, rendered this week."

She accepted the jar, lifting it to the light. "My, how clear and pale."

"Lots of sourwood out our way. Sourwood honey’s light like that. Takes on a little color from the tupelo, though."

She drew in her chin and gave him a pleased pout. "You did do your homework, didn’t you?"

He crossed his arms and planted his feet firmly apart, smiling down at her from the shadow of his hat brim. "I wanted to thank you for the pamphlets and books. I couldn’t’ve done it without them."

She held the jar in both hands and blinked up at him. "Thank you, Mr. Parker. And please thank Mrs. Dinsmore for me, too."

"Ah…" Will rubbed the underside of his nose. "She’s not Mrs. Dinsmore anymore, ma’am. She’s Mrs. Parker now."

"Oh." Surprise and deflation colored the single word.

"We got married up at Calhoun the end of October."

"Oh." Miss Beasley quickly collected herself. "Then congratulations are in order, aren’t they?"

"Well, thank you, Miss Beasley." He shifted his feet uneasily. "Ma’am, I don’t want to keep you from the kids, but I got honey to sell and not much time. I mean, there’s a lot to do out at the place before-" Again he shifted uneasily. "Well, you see, I’m wantin’ to put in an electric generator and a bathroom for Eleanor. I was wondering if you’d see what you got for books on electricity and plumbing. If you could pick ’em out, I’ll stop back for ’em in an hour or so when I get rid of the honey."

"Electricity and plumbing. Certainly."