He pulled into the driveway. She had parked so he could not help blocking her. They would deal with that later. The backdoor was locked. The backdoor was never locked. He walked around to the front. It was open, and from the doorknob hung a coronal of mint and sage with starry yellow flowers – he recognized them but didn’t know their name – woven in. He smiled and put the coronal on. He walked into the house. The air was heavy with sage and mint, and vases of flowers stood on every surface that could support one. “Dorinda?” he called a couple of times. She was not answering. He dropped his coat and books on the floor. Tables and desks and other likely surfaces were buried in flowers and dishes of chocolates. He ate a chocolate. He didn’t like chocolates that much, but this one had a cherry in the center, and some kind of warm liqueur oozing into his mouth when he crushed the cherry. The door into the garden – the bit of grass and one tree, which they called a garden – stood open. He crossed into the doorway and stopped. Paper lanterns hung upon the branches of the tree. She’d dragged the coffee table out onto the grass and covered it with purple, and on the purple sweated bottles of Prosecco. A couple of white blobs leaned against the tree, which Corin finally recognized as sheep cut hastily out of poster board. Dorinda herself sat upon a stool in the shade. Across her knees lay the lute he had bought her back in their graduate school days, which she had learned to play – for his sake, she said – better than indifferently. Her hair was combed down and shot out half-golden outriders in the breeze. Her dress was crinkly white linen, plain and old fashioned, though like him, now, she was crowned and draped in garlands of flowers. It had been a long time since she’d picked up the lute, and the tune she was plucking out at a hesitant Largo was difficult to recognize. She giggled and waved her hand in the air each time she made a mistake, as though the hand waving and the giggle erased the mistake and set it all back to Start. Before any mistakes were made. When the lambs’ down ruffled with zephyrs. When every goose was a swan. When it was pure. When Corin and Dorinda first sat upon the sward and confessed their love. Corin suddenly recognized the tune. He eased down on the grass beside her and began to sing, high up, in the key the lute provided, “When to her lute Corinna sings – ” It was not his key; it was hers. He strained to meet her voice as it floated down toward his lazy baritone, and each time, with each effort, it grew higher, more silvery, until her voice mingled in his was as nearly one voice as it had ever been. n
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COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
North Carolina Miscellany
Beginning Again by Kimberly Wheaton (oil and cold wax on cradled wood panel, 48x36)
AS THOUGH THE HAND WAVING AND THE GIGGLE ERASED THE MISTAKE AND SET IT ALL BACK TO START. BEFORE ANY MISTAKES WERE MADE.