Chapter 19 end vixen

1 In October Bill took her again to a lakeside picnic.This time they went in his car; it was too cold to go out on a motorcycle in the crisp autumn weather.As soon as you arrive at your destination, set yourself up for a picnic.The surrounding groves are brilliant in autumn, like a burning flame.Bill asked her if she already knew he was going to ask her some questions. "Yes, since the judgment came into force." He hugged her and kissed her.As she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and closed her eyes, she heard Rose Maddow's voice in the back of her head: We're even at last... If you still remember the tree if.

What kind of tree is it? tree of Life? The tree of death? Tree of Knowledge? The tree of knowledge of good and evil? Rosie shivered and hugged her future husband a little tighter.As he held her left breast, he was surprised to feel her shocking heartbeat. what tree? 2 They married in a secular ceremony between Thanksgiving and Christmas, ten days after a no-fault divorce from Norman took effect.On her first night as Rosie Steiner, she was woken up by her husband screaming. "I can't see her!" he yelled in his sleep. "She doesn't care who she kills! She doesn't care who she kills! Oh, please, can you make him stop screaming?" ?” Then, the voice gradually lowered until it disappeared, “What’s in your mouth? What are those lines?”

They were staying in a New York hotel and were about to leave for St. Thomas, where they planned to spend a fortnight on their honeymoon.Although she stuffed the little blue bag into the bottom of the leather bag she bought from Egypt, she brought the little china vase with her.It's an instinct—a woman's intuition.After two more of the same nightmares, she used it for him again, and the next morning, when Bill shaved, she put the last drop of the stream into his coffee. It had to work, she thought as she tossed the phial into the toilet and flushed it down.It has to work.The honeymoon was fantastic.They reveled in the blazing sunshine and the incredible sex, and neither of them had nightmares.

3 On a January day in January, when wind-wrapped snow blanketed the plains and the city, Rosie Steiner's home pregnancy test told her what she'd predicted: She was expecting a baby.She also knew something more that the tools couldn't tell her: The baby was a girl. Caroline arrived at last. We're even.She whispered in a voice that didn't feel like her own as she stood in their new house, looking out the window at the snowflakes.It reminded her of the fog in Bryant Park that night, the day she came home to find Norman waiting for them. Yes, yes, yes, she thought, almost getting tired of the thought now.Its babbling, tedious tones that never quite leave your mind are annoying.As long as I remember that tree, we're even, right?

No, replied the mad woman, her voice amazingly clear.Rosie turned hastily, the pulse beating violently in her forehead, and the sound convinced her suddenly that Rose Maddow was in this very house, with her.But despite the sound, she was still alone in the house.No... as long as you stay calm, as long as you can do this.But those two things become the same thing, right? "Get out!" she said to the empty house, her hoarse voice trembling. "Get off, you bastard. Get away from me. Get out of my life." 4 Her youngest daughter weighs about three kilograms.Although Caroline would always be her secret name, the name on the birth registration was Paul Gertrude.Rosie disagreed at first, saying that adding a middle name would make a child's name a play on words.She suggested, not very enthusiastically, that Pol Anna could be used.

"Oh, please," Bill said, "that name sounds like a proud fruit dessert in a California restaurant." "But--" "Don't worry about Pol Gertrude, number one, she'll never let even her best friend know that her middle name is Gert. You can rest assured of that. Number two, you're talking about That writer once said that a rose is a rose is a rose. I see no reason to be obsessed with names.” So they decided to use it. 5 When Ball was nearly two years old, her parents decided to buy a house in the suburbs.At that time their income was more than enough to buy a house; both had bright futures.They began by collecting dozens of advertisements and brochures, which were gradually sifted and eliminated until a dozen sets remained.Six sets, four sets, until finally only two sets remained.This got them into trouble.Rosie wanted one thing, Bill liked another.When their opinions start to polarize, the discussion turns into an argument, and the argument turns into a quarrel—unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, since even the sweetest, most harmonious marriages are bound to have occasional spats and arguments...even too noisy.

As a result, Rosie stalked into the kitchen and began to pack dinner, first put the chicken in the oven, then filled the pot with water, and put the fresh old corn she bought at the roadside fruit stand into the pot to cook.A little while later, while she was scraping potatoes by the stove, Bill came out of the living room where he had been looking at pictures of the two apartments that led to their disagreement... he was actually thinking hard about the two controversy.She didn't accept him as he usually did when he took a step forward, and she didn't turn around when he bent down to kiss her neck.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you about the house," he said in a low voice, "I still think Wenzer's suite is a better fit for us, but I sincerely apologize that I shouldn't have raised my voice. " He waited for her answer, and when she didn't respond, he turned and trudged out in pain, thinking she was still mad.She wasn't just angry; anger was far from expressing her state of mind at the moment.She was in a rage, or in a state of rage, and her silence was not the kind of childish and ridiculous "ignore him", but trying to restrain herself so as not to grab the boiling water pot on the stove and throw him at him. Throw it over your face.She saw a sad and vivid image in her mind: Bill staggering out of the kitchen, screaming, his skin turning a color she had often seen in her dreams.Bill touched the still-steaming sores that were developing on his cheeks.

Her left hand was actually trembling towards the handle of the pot.That night, when she was lying on the bed without sleepiness, a few words were repeated silently in her heart: I want to repay you. 6 In the next few days, she began to obsessively look at her hands, arms and face...but it was her hands that she saw most.Because everything happens from this. Where and what happened?She didn't really know...but she knew when she saw— (when that tree) She can recognize it. She discovered a place on the west side of the city called Aylmer Indoor Ballpark, and began going there to practice regularly.Most of the regulars there were middle-aged guys willing to pay five bucks for the honor of being Ken Griffey Jr. or Big Hurt for a while, just to feel like a college or high school boy.Most of the time they are spectators, standing outside the indoor court to watch.She has short brown hair and a pale and serious face, which is not at all different from the women in their thirties around her.The boys snickered, joked, elbowed each other, and put their hats on their heads to show they were cool.She completely ignored their laughter and their attention to her body.They seem to be saying that she is a artifact, a fox carved out of stone.

After a while, the laughter stopped.The woman in a sleeveless t-shirt and gray slacks, after an initial fumble and almost getting hit by rubber balls from the machine, had started off well and ended up hitting a very good point. "She played really well," said someone behind Rossi one day.Rosie blushed and her heart beat, and she wore a sweat-soaked helmet with her hair tucked into it.Later in the practice, she kept screaming, as if the ball had irritated her. "Turn that machine on, too," said the second man as the machine moved awkwardly down the middle of the court, rattling and rattling the ball at eighty miles an hour.Rosie let out a short yelp, her lowered head almost resting on her shoulders, the ball flew quickly in the other direction, it hit the guard fence two hundred feet away, did not stop, the green fiber ball After continuing to fly upwards for a while, it finally stopped in the middle of the other balls she hit.

"Well, she doesn't have to work so hard," said a third mockingly.He took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, took out only a box of matches, and struck one. "She might be a little—" This time Rossi didn't let out that quivering scream like a hungry bird, and the ball bounced back and hit the fence again...it went through the fence.The holes in the web looked like they had been pierced by bullets at close range. The smoking boy stood frozen, the match almost burning his fingers. "You're on point, brother!" said the first boy. 7 A month later, shortly after the indoor baseball field was closed for the season, Rhoda Simmons interrupted Rosie's reading of Gloria Zinra's new novel one day, telling her that the day was over.Rossi objected because it was still early.Rhoda agreed, but said her voice had run out of passion; it was better to take a break today and get on with it tomorrow. "Well, that's it, I want to go fishing," said Rosie. "Only twenty pages left. I just want to get the damn job done, Rhoda." "You don't do anything today anyway," Rhoda said irrefutably. "I don't know how long Pol kept you going last night. Anyway, you can't do it today." 8 Rosie got up, went to the door, and slammed the door so hard it nearly fell off its hinges.In the control room, she suddenly grabbed a terrified Rhoda Simmons by the collar of the designer baggy coat and slapped her against the control panel.The circuit switch pierced her cultured nose like a pork chop tine.Blood splattered all over immediately, and a stream of blood was also splashed on the window glass of the recording studio, and it began to shed crimson stains like Rose Maid. "Rosie, no!" Kurt Hamilton exclaimed, "My God, what are you doing?" Rosie dug her nails into Rhoda's quivering throat, tearing it open, her face drowning in the gushing, scalding blood, and she breathed in its scent, trying to fight for something she had foolishly fought against. baptism of new life.No need to answer Kurt, she knows exactly what she's doing, she's giving back, that's all she's doing, she's giving back, God is helping everyone in trouble pay the bills.God help her— 9 "Rosie?" Rhoda called her name over the intercom, waking her from this horrible, depressing daydream. "Are you OK?" Keep calm, little Rossi. Keep calm and remember that tree. She looked down and saw that the pencil in her hand had broken in two.She stared for a moment, then took a deep breath, trying to control her beating heart.When she felt she could speak in a normal voice, she said, "Yes, I'm fine. But you're right, the baby keeps me up late and I'm exhausted. Let's relax." "You're such a smart girl," Rhoda said, but the woman on the other side of the glass, who was taking off her earphones with trembling hands, thought otherwise.No, not smart at all, it's anger, she's an angry girl. I will pay back, a voice whispered in the back of her mind.Sooner or later, little Rosie, I will repay you.Whether you like it or not, I will repay you. 10 She wished to stay awake all night, but after midnight she fell asleep for a little while and dreamed.She dreamed of a tree, the same tree she had thought of in her waking hours: no wonder it was so incomprehensible.No wonder.What I've been imagining for so long is the wrong tree. She slept next to Bill, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the dream.In her dream she heard the cries of seagulls by the lake, and Bill's voice.Bill was saying that if they had a normal life, everything would be fine.If they stay normal, and remember that tree. She knew what she had to do. 11 The next day, she called Rhoda and said she couldn't make it.She said she had a slight cold.She then took Route 27, which leads to the lake, this time alone.Beside her was the old leather bag bought in Egypt.Every year around this time, she visits the picnic area once a year.She took off her shoes, put them under the dining table, and walked south across the instepless lake where Bill had walked the first time he brought her here.At first she thought she could not find the weedy path leading to the shore, but she found it anyway.When she walked on that path and walked barefoot on the road covered with coarse gravel, she felt very strange, how many times she had come here in her dreams. The path ended in a clearing with a fallen tree in the middle—the one she eventually recalled.She never forgot what happened in the world of oil painting.She was not surprised to see now that the tree was nothing like Ducasse's pomegranate tree. She could see a fox hole under the root of the tree on the far left, which was empty and looked a little old.She stepped forward and fell to her knees—not sure if her trembling legs would support her body.She opened the old leather bag and poured out the remnants of a life of pity on the ground covered with a layer of humus.Among the crumpled, years-old dry-cleaning receipts peeped a store shopping list with a large lettering: Pork Chops! The large print was underlined and followed by an exclamation point (pork chops were always Norman's favorite food), and beneath the receipt was a small blue packet splattered with mauve blood. She shivered and began to cry—partly from the excessive grief of her old wounded life, and partly from the fear of danger in the new life.She dug a hole next to the trunk of the big tree.When it was about eight inches deep, she placed the packet next to the pit and opened it.The seed was still inside, along with her ex-husband's ring. She picked up the seed, its magic still there, and her fingers went numb the instant they touched it.She put the ring into the pit and put the seed in the middle of the ring. "Please," she said, not realizing she was praying or who she was praying for.In any case, she heard an answer, barely an answer.She heard a sharp, short bark.There was no mercy, no grace in the voice, it was impatient.Don't fucking bother me, it said. Rosie looked up, and she saw the vixen standing far away at the edge of the clearing, looking at her motionless.It was radiant, like a burning torch, illuminating the gray sky. "Please," she repeated in a low, worried voice, "please don't make me do what I'm afraid to do. Please... just let me calm down and remember that tree." Not a single word, not even a few impatient barks, was an answer to her.The vixen just stood there panting and beating, with his tongue sticking out.Rosie thought it was grinning. She took one more look at the ring with the seeds in it, and then she covered the little pit with rich soil. A handful of dirt for my mistress, she thought, a handful for my old mother, another for the little girl who lives down the road, and a last for Rosie. She walked to the end of the path outside the clearing that would lead her back to the lake.When she got back there, the Vixen briskly ran to the fallen tree, sniffed hard where Rosie had buried the ring and the seeds, and lay down there.It was still panting and beating, still grinning (now Rosie was sure it was smiling), still looking at Rosie with its dark eyes.The child was gone, the eyes said, and so was the dog.But me, Rosie... I'm waiting, and if I need to reciprocate, I'll do it. Rosie looked for madness and sanity in those eyes...she saw both. Then the vixen lowered her beautiful nose and fluffy hair, closed her eyes, and seemed to be asleep. "Please," Rosie whispered one last time, and left. She drove the car onto the elevated highway and went back to the life she wanted, leaving everything behind her—throwing the old leather bag she bought from Egypt through the driver's window and driving. Drive straight to Curry Bay. 12 The anger died down. Her child, Pol, hadn't grown up yet, but already had friends of her own, had apple-bud breasts, and started menstruating.She was old enough to argue with her mother about what to wear and where to spend the night, what to do, who to hang out with, how long to go out.Ball's hurricane of adolescence hadn't quite started yet, but Rosie knew it was coming.She took it easy, however, because her anger had subsided. Bill's hair was graying and balding. Rosie's hair is still brown.She simply combed it and draped it over her shoulders.She tied them up sometimes, but never braided them again. It had been many years since they had gone to the lakeside picnic spot off Interstate 27.Bill, who seemed to have forgotten about the picnic, sold his Harley-Davidson because, he said, he sold it because, "My reflexes have gotten pretty slow, Rosie. When fun turns to adventure That's when it should all be over." She didn't argue with him, but she felt sad that Bill had sold a whole bunch of good memories with the scooter.It seemed as though many of his youth had been stuffed into the box, and had forgotten to check and get them out before the handsome young man from Evansstone rode it off. They never went to a picnic again, but Rosie went out alone every spring.She found that in the shadow of the old tree, the seed had grown from a tender bud into a young tree with a smooth and straight trunk and confident branches.She watched it grow year after year, and there were no fox cubs playing in the glade.She sat quietly in front of the tree, sometimes for an hour, with her hands side by side in her lap.She didn't come here to pray or to worship, but she felt it was right and ceremonial to come here, to fulfill some unquestionable duty, if she came here so that she could do no harm to anyone - Bill , Pole, Rhoda, Kurt (Rabbi Lefferts need not worry, he died quietly of a heart attack when Pole was five years old) - time spent here is well spent. How well this tree is growing!Its immature branches are densely covered with black and green long and narrow leaves.Over the past few years, Rossi has watched the foliage gradually darken, and over the next two years, its flowers turn into fruit.If anyone happened to pass by the woodland and eat the fruit of this tree, Rosie concluded that the person must die, and die a terrible death.This often worried her, but there was nothing to worry about until there was no sign of someone's presence.She hadn't seen any signs so far, not even a single beer can, cigarette butt, or chewing gum wrapper.Putting her immaculate hands in her lap, she looked at the tree of wrath, which had once been splashed with roses, and thought, that in the near future it would bear sweet, cloying fruit of death. She sometimes sings beside this little village. "I'm the real Rosie," she sings, "Rosie is who I am... why don't you believe... I'm not a normal person..." Of course she is an ordinary person.But for those who are important in her life, she is not ordinary.She only cares about these people.They were even, the woman in the classic dress must have said.She arrived at safe haven, in a bright spring by the lake, in a quiet glade that hadn't changed in years (like a painting one might find in an old antique store or a mortgage-rental store) Kind of), she sat cross-legged with an overwhelming sense of gratitude that made her sing.She can only sing.There is no other choice. The vixen was old now, and his beautiful fluffy hair was covered with silver threads, and sometimes he stood by the clearing, as if listening to Rosie singing.Although its black eyes did not convey any clear thoughts to Rossi, one could not help but see that the most sound mind was hidden in this old and wise brain. June 10, 1993 - November 17, 1994