and stirred it into blazing light. Men were never content with hot embers. It was always the blaze for them.
“Why are you really here? You didn’t come for a cup of cocoa.” I took the straight-backed chair at my desk and set it beside him.
“You’re right. I don’t want cocoa. I saw you go out early this morning. I thought you might need someone to warm you up after frisking about in the snow.”
“And that someone would be you?”
“You could go a long way and do a lot worse.”
He was impertinent and I couldn’t stop the smile. “Are you on the clock for Dorothea?”
He looked surprised. “Yeah. But I figure keeping her tenant happy is a good service for her. A beautiful woman like you, alone. That’s not a happy picture.”
“And this is all for Dorothea’s good?”
“You bet.” He leaned forward and put his hand on my knee.
Whether it was the suddenness of his touch or my own reluctance to partake of intimacy, I moved away from him. “I’m not one of the girls who follow you like puppies, Patrick. I’m here to work.”
He chewed his bottom lip. “I like you, Aine. I flirt with the others, the girls, but I don’t take it any further than that. They like the attention. You’re different. You’re … serious.”
“And that wouldn’t be a good thing for either of us.”
He pushed out of the chair. “I warn you, I don’t give up. Maybe if we just climbed in the sack and tested it out, I could let you go.”
“Not going to happen.” The desire of a younger man is a flattering thing, but wisdom prevailed. Patrick might become a vice that would be hard to break. I wasn’t immune to my physical needs, but I’d sworn off emotional engagement. I suspected Patrick would be fun, and I was smart enough to know I couldn’t miss what I’d never had. With so much riding on the work I accomplished while at Concord, time was too precious to expend on romantic endeavors.
I went to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. “I’m serious, Patrick. You need to leave.” I drank deeply, waiting for him to comply.
At last he accepted my decision and sauntered out the door, and I returned to my desk. Thoreau’s book slipped off the desk and fell to the floor. Beneath it was Bonnie’s journal, opened to a page near the middle.
While I thrive in the Walden solitude with Henry, I also yearn for more. He tells me that each moment is precious, and life is wasted by wishing for the future, yet I can’t stop myself. This morning I came across a young girl in the woods, a beautiful child with golden ringlets and blue eyes framed with thick dark lashes. She stepped out from behind a sycamore holding her dolly. Too timid to come forward, she simply watched me with her deep blue eyes. Then she was gone. The pain of her departure forced me to realize how much I want my own child. Henry is opposed. He immerses himself in his studies and the solitude of nature. I love those things, too, but my arms crave the solid weight of a baby.
This passage I remembered. I’d read it a dozen times, but it had taken on new meaning after my Barbie encounter. The parallels between the past and present were unsettling, to say the least.
I flipped the journal closed. I understood Bonnie’s desire too well. I’d once felt the longing for a child. A great weariness settled over me.
Now wasn’t the time for depression and the morbid glumness that robbed me of ambition. Research on the Internet was all well and good, but nothing could take the place of a library. I needed the older records stored in the Concord library. Tomorrow, I would find time to explore the town’s records. I would establish Bonnie’s presence in Concord and anchor my dissertation in solid, proven fact.
5
My library research took me down a rabbit trail of men’s hairstyles in the mid-1800s. The information was useless for my dissertation, but it amused me. I’d awakened with a maddening depression, and I’d learned to pace myself when the