The Evolution of Love by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Author:Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2018-04-30T20:58:29+00:00

23

Lily fled the candlelit bedroom and the Craftsman bungalow, but she couldn’t get free of that whirlpool of feeling. His intensity, his listening, his convictions; it was as if Travis and Tom were two different countries. Was that the choice? Frightening zeal or bland disconnection?

She wanted her own country.

Lily hiked up the hill, not paying attention, forgetting to walk with intention and confidence, trying to fathom why Travis would have a handgun, an object that negated everything she thought he stood for.

She needed to get back on track with her plan. The loneliness had gouged her out, left her empty and vulnerable. She’d been alone on her hillside for five nights, the solitude interrupted only by the few hours in the church and a couple of phone calls with Vicky. The loss of Tom was a tide sucking her out to sea. She needed to act rationally. Take steps. She would make Sal acknowledge her and convince Vicky to move back to Berkeley. Tomorrow she’d talk to Kalisha about her plan.

The band of ferals circled Lily near La Loma Park, the place where the two National Guard soldiers, Eduardo and William, were usually stationed. She’d been sneaking the guards snacks from the church and sometimes sat in the park with them exchanging news. Both were from Texas. Tonight they were nowhere to be seen. The kids corralled her, the way humpback whales do prey, moving her toward the jungle gym. They pushed her against the bars of the structure. Some of the ferals couldn’t have been older than six, but there were at least seven of them, and they stuffed their hands in her pockets, yanked off her sneakers, reached into her bra where they found the last of her cash.

The children didn’t even frighten her, not now after that womb of candlelight with an armed man at its center. Not now with her husband leaving her, or her leaving her husband, and her life a gaping maw before her. A bunch of hungry children. That at least was something she understood.

“I’d like to keep my sneakers,” she said. But they walked off with them anyway, shouting at one another, beginning to brawl over who got the cash. Then one little boy, inexplicably, snatched one sneaker from each of two other ferals, retraced his steps, and hurled them at her. Maybe she looked like his mother.

Lily sat on the ground and tied on her shoes. Luckily she’d left her bicycle at the church, though it made for a long walk out to her campsite. When she got to Grizzly Peak Boulevard, she took a right, passed the turnoff for Ridge Road, and continued on to the fire trail. She walked out through the forest of eucalyptus and bay laurels and stopped at the place where in daylight she could see the toolshed on the hillside high above the trail. Sal did a good job of making herself scarce. Every time she passed, Lily looked for signs of life: movement, drying clothing, an open door.

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