“Lucy seems happy,” Eli said.
“She misses her mother. I know it didn’t show today, but she was so excited to see you and thrilled to be outside. At night though, she cries after she thinks I’m asleep.” She didn’t share with Eli how torn she felt, lying in her own bed and listening to the quiet mourning. The basement gave them so little privacy, she wanted to allow Lucy the peace to cry alone. And some nights Lynn’s cheeks were wet as well, her own mother near in her mind.
“Will Neva ever be ready to take her back?”
“Do you want her to?”
Lynn leaned back against Lucy’s cot and shut her eyes. “No. But she’s not mine to keep. I know Neva thinks she’s not capable of caring for her.”
“It was true at the time she said it,” Eli answered. “But she’s doing better, physically anyway. All the wildness of this place scares her though. She only leaves the house to visit the baby’s grave.”
“There’s no shame in being scared,” Lynn said. “I imagine if I were plunked down in the middle of Entargo I’d probably hide too.”
“Our mom thought there was shame in it,” Eli said. “Even back in the city, Neva jumped at the smallest things. Mom wanted the best possible wife for Bradley, said he was the kind of person that needed to keep the race going. A girl who cries when there’s a mouse in the kitchen didn’t exactly fit the ideal Mom had in mind for him.”
“What about you? Aren’t you the type that’s supposed to carry on the race?”
For the first time Eli’s smile wasn’t a nice one. “Oh, I’m not Bradley. That’s something I’ve known since I could see. The population schedules are figured according to the male. So a woman could have two kids but each of them would have a different father, one child per male. My dad died before I was born so I don’t know what he was like, but he certainly didn’t have the place in Mom’s heart that Bradley’s dad did. If I’d had a child when we were still in the city, it wouldn’t have been half the event Bradley’s was.”
Lynn nodded and looked at Eli in the firelight. She hadn’t seen him without layers of clothing since their first meeting by the stream, and he had improved since then. Sinewy muscles lined his arms, the hollows in his cheeks were filled. He caught her looking and she glanced away, clearing her throat.
“But you said your mom had a musician picked out for you?”
“She said my best attribute was my voice, and she found me a nice little pianist.”
“I’d say your bow shot is your best attribute,” Lynn said.
“That would win me a lot of girls back in the city,” Eli said. “They all want a man that can nail a squirrel at fifty yards.” They both laughed. “Besides,” he went on, “Stebbs says I’ve got nothing on you.”
“True enough,” Lynn said, and they laughed again. “I’m better with the rifle though,” she added. “I spend so much time prone on the roof peering through that scope my neck’s got a permanent crick in it.”
“Oh, really?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Lynn cracked her neck to illustrate.
“You know, that pianist told me I give pretty good back rubs.”
“Oh, did she now?”
“Yup.” Eli smiled at her. “Course I imagine you’ve got more stress than a city musician.”
“A bit.”
“A fellow can try though, right?”
Lynn eyed him gravely for a moment. “You’re not going to try to have sex with me, are you?”
For the briefest moment, Eli was speechless and Lynn felt a flush running up her neck at the thought that she’d said something stupid. The moment was broken when he threw both hands in the air in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it! Well . . . I might dream—” Lynn tossed her boot at him, cutting him off mid sentence. He swatted it out of the air with ease. “Get over here.”
Lynn laughed and scooted over the floor to lean back against his legs. He touched her gently at first, only on the shoulders, and Lynn felt her entire body tense under the contact. He moved slowly but thoroughly, running his thumbs up and down the strong cords of her neck and down to the tops of her shoulder blades. Soon the newness of being touched by him was less alarming and more pleasant, and Lynn sagged against him, allowing all the tension of her life to seep out under his practiced hands.
“Yeah, you’re okay at this,” she said eventually, breaking the silence.
“Don’t be so critical. You’re slightly more tense than the pianist.”
“Oh, am I?” Lynn asked, but she noticed that Eli had yet to call his old girlfriend by her name. “What was she like?”
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“Oh, well . . .” Eli’s hands stopped moving for one second, but he picked the rhythm back up. “She was a nice girl, and we got along fine, but that spark was missing, you know?”