Not anything in any respect. And,” relocating her bare arms, crushing the wax paper right into a smooth luminous ball, “this is my final blind date. a final blind date for Pixie and me. i do know you won’t jilt us, Skipper. i do know you’ll be sort. ” I wriggled. I blushed. I took the sandwich. I heard the catgut notes of the ukelele—vision of French letters floating downstream within the moonlight—I heard the black turbine roaring of our diesel engine, past this steel and glass heard the excessive wind choked with thistle and the flat shoe leather-based our bodies of lifeless prairie rodents. and that i used to be wedged into the evening, wedged firmly in my joyful embarrassment, and chewing, frowning, hoping to maintain her feathery voice alive. Our picnic, our predawn hours jointly in this rushing bus, our cramped yet tricky positions jointly firstly of this our trip among far-off cemeteries, the approximately actual glow that starts off to hot the darkest hour on the finish of the evening watch—when sleep is barely a shiny immensity get rid of so long as attainable and a guy is stuffed with a grasping slack wish to keep in mind even his so much painful memories—in all of the seductive shabbiness of the instant I felt that I knew myself, middle and belly, as peaceable father of my very own appealing and unpredictable baby, and that the matted traveller was once secure, that either one of us have been secure. We too might have our sweet bars whilst the sunlight rose. Sonny had supplied the sandwiches yet i actually had considered the sweet bars, had slipped them secretly into the flight bag with Cassandra’s stockings and Pixie’s little fluffy pinafore. We too may have our arrival and departure, our radio broadcast of victory and defeat. within the darkness the driving force sounded his horn—triple-toned trumpet, inane orchestrated caution to weak-kneed straying cows and dozing towns—and my lips rolled into the free form of a inconsiderate murmur: “Happy, Cassandra? ” “I’m sleepy, Skipper. i need to fall asleep. Will you are attempting? ” I chuckled. and he or she smoothed down her frock, brushed the empty paper bag to the ground, pressed her fingers jointly, hands and hands directly and touching because the baby prays, and with no glancing at me lay her cheek on her clasped palms and close her eyes. as though she had toileted, donned her negligee, became together with her face avoided and drawn the coloration. Modest Cassandra. whereas I chuckled back, grimaced, rolled my head again to the window, grunted less than the burden of Pixie—bad goals, little pig sounds —then sighed and swung away and dropped to my military of determined visions that leapt approximately within the darkness. yet secure. slumbering. Outward certain. yet wasn’t Cassandra nonetheless my teen-age bomb? Wasn’t she? although she used to be a battle bride, a mom, a tender in charge lady of twenty-five? at the least i presumed so whilst ultimately I aroused from sleep to the barren region sunburst and a huge sea-green grandfather cactus stabbed to dying via its personal needles and to the sight of Cassandra begging Pixie to drink down a bit extra of the canned milk daysold now and pellucid. And wasn’t this accurately what I enjoyed?