Luce ignored him. She thought of and refused to give voice to hundreds of questions, frustrations, accusations, and--ultimately--apologies for Luce ignored him. She thought of and refused to give voice to hundreds of questions, frustrations, accusations, and--ultimately--apologies for acting like such a spoiled brat. At the turno for the Anderson Valley, Daniel forked west and tried again to hold her hand. "Maybe you'll forgive me in time to enjoy our last few minutes together?"
She wanted to. She really wanted to not be ghting with Daniel right now. But the fresh mention of there being such a thing as a "last few minutes together," of his leaving her alone for reasons she couldn't understand and that he always refused to explain--it made Luce nervous, then terri ed, then frustrated all over again. In the roiling sea of new state, new school, new dangers everywhere, Daniel was the only rock she had to hold on to. And he was about to leave her? Hadn't she been through enough? Hadn't they both been through enough?
It was only after they'd passed through the redwoods and come out into a starry, royal-blue evening that Daniel said something that broke through to her. They'd just passed a sign that read WELCOME TO MENDOCINO, and Luce was looking west. A full moon shone down on a cluster of buildings: a lighthouse, several copper water towers, and rows of well-preserved old wooden houses. Somewhere out beyond all that was the ocean she could hear but couldn't see.
Daniel pointed east, into a dark, dense forest of redwood and maple trees. "See that trailer park up ahead?"
She never would have if he hadn't pointed it out, but now Luce squinted to see a narrow driveway, where a lime-caked wooden placard read in whitewashed letters MENDOCINO MOBILE HOMES.
"You used to live right there."
"What?" Luce sucked in her breath so quickly, she started to cough. The park looked sad and lonesome, a dull line of low-ceilinged cookie-cutter boxes set along a cheap gravel road. "That's awful."
"You lived there before it was a trailer park," Daniel said, easing the car to a stop by the side of the road. "Before there were mobile homes. Your father in that lifetime brought your family out from Illinois during the gold rush." He seemed to look inward somewhere, and sadly shook his head. "Used to be a really nice place."
Luce watched a bald man with a potbelly tug a mangy orange dog on a leash. The man was wearing a white undershirt and annel boxers. Luce couldn't picture herself there at all.
Yet it was so clear to Daniel. "You had a two-room cabin and your mother was a terrible cook, so the whole place always smelled like cabbage. You had these blue gingham curtains that I used to part so I could climb through your window at night after your parents were asleep."
The car idled. Luce closed her eyes and tried to ght back her stupid tears. Hearing their history from Daniel made it feel both possible and impossible. Hearing it also made her feel extremely guilty. He'd stuck with her for so long, over so many lifetimes. She'd forgotten how well he knew her. Better even than she knew herself. Would Daniel know what she was thinking now? Luce wondered whether, in some ways, it was easier to be her and to never have remembered Daniel than it was for him to go through this time and time again.
If he said he had to leave for a few weeks and couldn't explain why ... she would have to trust him.
"What was it like when you rst met me?" she asked.
Daniel smiled. "I chopped wood in exchange for meals back then. One night around dinnertime I was walking past your house. Your mother had the cabbage going, and it stank so badly I almost skipped your house. But then I saw you through the window. You were sewing. I couldn't take my eyes o your hands."
Luce looked at her hands, her pale, tapered ngers and small, square palms. She wondered if they'd always looked the same. Daniel reached for them across the console. "They're just as soft now as they were then."
Luce shook her head. She loved the story, wanted to hear a thousand more just like it, but that wasn't what she'd meant. "I want to know about the rst time you met me," she said. "The very rst time. What was that like?"