Lamb

I’m sorry, baby. This is the last chapter. We knew it was coming. We have to be strong. When you get to have a love like this you have to be strong enough to bear it. A love like ours is expensive. Think of it that way. And we pay for it with the next empty string of days. I know you’re good for it. I’ve always known

I’m afraid everyone’s in on something really wonderful, Linnie, and I don’t know what it is, and I can’t be in on it

We’re all alone out here, he would say. Is the sky bright, or what? Listen to those mad birds. We’re reinventing the world

Was it a pretty night out there?”

“I was too sad.”

“Was it even more sad because the night was pretty?”

“Yes.”

What a man she rendered him, simply by being a girl who could be picked up and moved:

Will you be on the old horse?”

“Oh, you sweet girl. I’ll be that horse. Look at me. I am that sad old horse. I’ll come stumbling up the edge of the road. So tired. But if you put your face very close, here, to my breath—here, closer, like that—and if you listen carefully, you’ll hear me whisper. Come up. Let’s go get the world while there’s still some of it worth getting.”