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The vision of Ovid’s body, forgotten for a few blessed seconds, returned to agitate her Men she had seen, in life and in the movies of course, nakedness was everywhere anyood opinion she worked hardest to earn Who scrutinized her routinely froetfulness, and simpler minds than the one she inhabited She was desperate for Cub to say anything at all, but he was too busy breathing

"How come Hester finally decided to move the ewes over here?" she asked him

"I don’t know" He added after a beat, "Too wet over there" It would be a conversation of short sentences, then

"That bottomland is too wet for theuess" He puffed "And she thinks they’ll get wor on the slope The white frost accentuated details of the ground, its ridges and stippled dead grass, the lay of the land This didn’t look good for the butterflies It felt strange not to know the dao up there

"You knohat?" she said to Cub "I talked with Hester about that, the day she came over to our house Before Christmas, that would have been"

"About the ewes? What’d she say?"

"She didn’t trust us to keep an eye on theood as" Dellarobia panted a little herself with the cli each white breath ed, so she took the the top of the pasture bare trees stood upright like bars of a prison, throwing vertical shadon the length of the hill All the world enclosed her in black and white "I told her we could help out when the lambs were born Preston and I would like it Hester just kind of pulled up her nose at that"

"But we could," Cub said "She’s got books You could read up on the laet a book from the shelf His camper’s tiny kitchen cupboards were all craht have turned toward thein tiled for an even conversational keel "Okay Borrow me one of those books from Hester," she said "So I’d knohat to do if a lahed Co from Cub, that was funny It softened her present distress

"Hoere your folks thisover later"

"Really While she’s got the kids?"

"Probably not till after we pick up the kids But the conniption has begun"