“Do you want to go out on the water?” he asked.
Air was cool. Sky was gray, and depth of western sky showed no likeliness of change.
Resting in porch sit, looking out over water’s channel, Anna covered her chest in crossing of arms to warm and cover the sharp of tight-drawn ends risen and shaped in the cool. Hands moved in rub over open arms in make of further warmth.
It was cold. It was gray. Lake was gloom. She did not want to go out onto the water where the cool would be even more.
“No,” Ann answered plain and single-worded.
She read is responding and register in eyes and his searching in mind for answer to its follow-on ask, “What next?”
Boating deferred the question. Boating delayed the examen, engagement in leisure of sensory pleasure that dismissed all and require of deeper thought.
What next—when the question and ask were no longer delayed and one must confront and find an answer: if one could not rest in peace amongst one’s self?
But Anna could. She did not worry.
Beside his restless and begun examen, she kept her peace, not allowing own to be disrupted or disturbed by inconvenience of a cloud.
Beneath the gray, amongst the cool and sense of gloom, she thought of the farm and small wood home in hide amongst the trees were all were warmed away. She thought of the stone-made hearth, built fire alight within—of warming, embraced, in lovers’ close before fire’s heat and light until cool and cloud were passed and sky painted through in blue again.
She warmed in glow, as she imagined them, through keep of cool and cloud, in hold and making of their love.