A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt Page A

lights and sterile boxwalls with machines on them, and the nurses who didn’t care about what you were going through. I dream about it sometimes.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Jeff said.
    â€œThen, when they brought you to me — after I came out of the anesthetic — this little baby, so little and helpless. Your eyes were open but you couldn’t see anything really, I knew that. Your fingers were all curled up, and then when I nursed you — ” She looked up at him. “Does that embarrass you?”
    â€œNo,” Jeff lied.
    â€œThen I knew that none of the pain mattered a whit, as long as you were the result of it. It was like ten Christmases all at once. I couldn’t breathe properly.” Her voice caressed the memory. “I didn’t mind that or the bleeding. None of it could make even a dent in my happiness. Sometimes I think that was the happiest time of my life. And we were always together, for as long as I could,we’d go everywhere together. You’d look at me with your big eyes, you’d only look at me, always — Your eyes have changed,” she observed.
    Jeff didn’t know what to say.
    â€œI’m so glad to see you again,” Melody declared. “You don’t know how I’ve missed you. Have you missed me? Was it very terrible for you? Is it still? No, I don’t think I really want to hear about that, it’ll just make me feel more guilty. And besides, it’s all behind us now, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes,” was all Jeff could say.
    â€œCome on, why are we sitting here? I want to show you my city. You can walk for hours and never see it all. Come on, Jeffie.”
    They ambled up streets and down alleys, through a church graveyard, and along a business street where they peered into the windows of antique shops. She showed him the oldest part of the city, where houses built in Revolutionary times were being renovated. At last they stopped at a small restaurant for something to drink.
    Melody wanted to sit outside. The glass-topped tables were small, the chairs set on uneven bricks, the area roofed over by a rough wooden trellis over which grapevines had been trained. They sat in dappled sunlight. Their table had a little vase of fresh daisies on it, the napkins were linen, brick walls enclosed the garden. Melody studied the handwritten menu, Jeff studied her. She looked at him mischievously over the top and asked if he wasn’t hungry, because she was. They ordered sandwiches and iced tea, which Melody said was very good here. “Do you like it?” Melody asked him, as he ate his sandwich.
    â€œIt’s good.”
    â€œNo, you silly goose, the restaurant. It’s my absolute favorite for lunch; I’d eat here every day if I could afford it. Do you?”
    â€œVery much.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked him. Her gray eyes were teasing. “Well, Jeffie, you don’t say very much and I really do want to hear what you have to say. I don’t want to pry into your secret thoughts, so I thought — if he’ll talk to me about the scenery, then I can hear what he has to say.”
    Jeff, who felt by this time as if all the hard frozen places within him had melted away, smiled happily back at her. “I like it — the way I like Gambo’s house, and everything we’ve seen today — because . . .it looks as if somebody has taken the trouble to make it pretty. And it’s lasted such a long time. It makes my eyes feel good, because — it’s the same way you look.”
    â€œA compliment? Then you’re not disappointed in me?”
    Jeff just shook his head.
    â€œBut don’t you have any questions? There should be so many questions you want to ask me and you haven’t asked me any. Not one.”
    As if she had summoned them up, Jeff realized that he did have questions, answers he badly wanted to hear. “Yes,” he said.
    â€œThen ask them, for