In the Field by Rachel Pastan

Author:Rachel Pastan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

The knock was so quiet, so tentative, it sounded like someone knocking on the door across the hall. But then a face appeared, thin and dark and smiling shyly.

“Cynthia,” Kate said.

“Is it all right if I come in?”

“Of course.” Kate pushed herself upright, pulled the sheets around her, and smoothed them, while Cynthia stood just inside the doorway. “Are you feeling better?” Kate asked after what felt like a long time.

Cynthia blushed. “I should be asking you that.” She held a jam jar with a few stalks of purplish joe-pye weed, which she set down on the little table beside Whitaker’s fiery gladiolas. “They can’t compete, can they? But I thought they were pretty.”

“I like wildflowers,” Kate said.

“Weeds,” Cynthia said.

“Butterflies like them, too.” The air between them felt thin and brittle, like a scrim of ice. Kate wondered if she could pretend to be tired and need to sleep. Perhaps a nurse would barge in with a thermometer or a medicine bottle. Kate didn’t think she and Cynthia had ever been alone in a room together before. Mostly she didn’t bother trying to make small talk with people, but this was Thatch’s wife. “Little glassywings,” she offered. “American ladies. Vanessa virginiensis.” Perhaps naming butterflies wasn’t exactly small talk, but it was the best she could manage.

“I love the Latin binomial names,” Cynthia said. “Don’t you? Eutrochium dubium.” Gently she touched the untidy flower head.

“I always forget you’re a botanist.”

Cynthia’s doe eyes turned to her. “Was.”

“You could always change your mind and go back to it.”

“No. I like plants, but I’m not disciplined.”

Kate knew lots of scientists who weren’t disciplined. But she thought it was probably time to change the subject. “I was sorry to hear about the honeymoon,” she said. “The flooding, I mean.”

“And I was sorry to hear about your plants.” Cynthia’s big eyes were full of pity, which was unbearable. “John has told me how they’re everything to you.”

Were, Kate thought. So Thatch talked about her with Cynthia. Well, why wouldn’t he? They were married, after all.

“But he said there were a few left. Perhaps you can salvage something.”

“When do you leave for New York?” Kate asked. “You must be excited.”

Cynthia touched the flower again, very gently, with her thin olive forefinger. “The Indians used Eutrochium to treat fevers,” she said.

“Plants do have extraordinary properties,” Kate said. “Since they can’t escape their enemies by running, they have to be crafty.”

Cynthia laughed, which made her look suddenly pretty, the way Kate remembered her looking. “That makes a person feel uncomfortable about eating a carrot,” she said.

In fact, Kate often felt uncomfortable eating carrots. Fruit was one thing—the plant offered it to you of its own free will—but who could say that a carrot felt less pain than a cow? “How’s Thatch?” she asked.

“John’s all right. Just a little anxious. So many changes.”

“They’re going to love him at the Rockefeller.”

Cynthia’s eyes fell to her lap, where her hands lay neatly folded as if she were in church. “Of course, not all the changes are professional.

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