Searching for Caleb

They left behind Justine's beloved goats, Duncan's chewed-looking rhododendron bushes and his empty, echoing, beautifully built hen house.

They took most of the Peck furniture as well as ten years' supply of Bag Balm, which turned out to be excellent for chapped hands. And all the way to Virginia, his truck following behind the apple-green Graham Paige, Duncan studied the back of Justine's head and wondered what was going on in her mind. He knew she hated this move. She had joined up with him, he thought, as easily as taking the hand of someone next to her on a sofa.

How could she guess that immediately afterward she would be pulled not only off the sofa but also out of the house, out of the city, off to another state, even, clinging fast in bewilderment and asking herself what had happened? And now look: she was so bright and reckless, rattling down the highway, he was reminded of her mother's terrible gaiety at the wedding reception. He knew that sooner or later she was going to break down.

Yet in Virginia, in their shallow hot apartment above Uncle Ed Hodges's garage, Justine remained cheerful. She hummed as she settled their belongings in-only, perhaps, taking a little less care this time, leaving the damask curtains unhung and giving Aunt Marybelle, without a thought, the huge walnut breakfront when it wouldn't fit through the apartment door. She located a church bazaar, where she told fortunes, and after that there was a steady trickle of clients. To Duncan they were indistinguishable from her Buskville clients-mostly women, faded housewives and very young girls-and their lives were indistinguishable too, and their futures, which even he could have predicted, but Justine was patient and kind with them and it was plain they all loved her. In the afternoons, if she had no readings, she came to the cabinetworks and watched Duncan build things. At first she was shy among the blunt, sawdusty carpenters, but she warmed up after a while. She made friends with them and told fortunes for their wives and kept their children.

Sometimes she even helped out with the work, sitting on a board for someone or sanding down a tabletop. And always she was so joyous. How long could this last?

She said she wanted a baby. Duncan didn't. The idea of a family- a closed circle locking him in, some unlucky child whom he would lock in-made him feel desperate. Besides, he was not so sure that it was medically sound.

Who knew what might be passed on? He pointed out their heredity; heart murmurs, premature births, their grandfather's deafness.

"But!" Justine said. "Look at our teeth! They're perfect, not a cavity in the lot. Nobody's ever lost one."

"Justine, if I hear one more word about those goddam teeth-"

But in the end he gave in. He agreed to a baby the way Justine, he imagined, had agreed to move to Virginia; he assumed it was necessary for her in some way that he would never understand. And all through her pregnancy he tried to take an interest. He listened to the details of every doctor's appointment, he practiced her breathing exercises with her until he grew light-headed. Twice he drove her to Baltimore for over-long visits with the aunts, who fussed and clucked around her while Duncan skulked nearby with his collar turned up and his hands jammed deep in his pockets. It seemed to him that his part in all this was so incidental.

But when he steeled himself to suggest that she might want to go to Baltimore for the birth as well, Justine turned a sudden level gaze on him and said, "No, thank you. I'll have it here with you." How did her mind work?