"Different from what?"
  "Different from the way you usually are. For two whole weeks," she said, "when you came 
home from the clinic, you didn't once grump about sick poodles and Siamese cats."
  "Well, that's because the only patients I had for those two weeks were elephants and 
giraffes."
  "Oh, daddy."
  "And a pregnant kangaroo."
  Rya sat on the bed. "Are you going to ask her to marry you?"
  "The kangaroo?"
  She grinned, partly at the joke and partly at the way he was trying to evade the 
question. "I'm not sure I'd like a kangaroo for a mother," she said. "But if the baby is 
yours, you're going to have to marry her if you want to do the right thing."
  "I swear it's not mine," he said. "I'm not romantically inclined toward kangaroos."
  "Toward Jenny?" she asked.
  "Whether or nor I'm attracted to her, the important question is whether Jenny likes me."
  "You don't know?" Rya asked. "Well . . . I'll find out for you."
  Teasing her, he said, "How will you do that?"
  "Ask her."
  "And make me look like Miles Standish?"
  "Oh, no," she said. "I'll be subtle about it." She got up from the bed and went to the 
door. "Mark must have eaten three-fourths of the food by now."
  "Rya?"
  She looked back at him.
  "Do you like Jenny?"
  She grinned. "Oh, very much."
  For seven years, since Mark was two and Rya four, the Annendales had been taking their 
summer vacation in the mountains above Black River. Paul wanted to communicate to his 
children his own love of wild places and wild things. During these four- and six-week 
vacations, he educated them in the ways of nature so that they might know the 
satisfaction of being in harmony with it. This was a joyous education, and they looked 
forward to each outing.
  The year that Annie died, he almost canceled the trip. At
  first it had seemed to him that going without her would only make their loss more 
evident. Rya had convinced him otherwise. "It's like Mommy is still in this house," Rya 
had said. "When I go from one room to another, I expect to find her there, all pale and 
drawn like she was near the end. If we go camping up beyond Black River, I guess maybe 
I'll expect to see her in the woods too, but at least I won't expect to see her pale and 
drawn. When we went to Black River, she was so pretty and healthy. And she was always so 
happy when we were out in the forest." Because of Rya, they took their vacation as usual 
that year, and it proved to be the best thing they could have done.
  The first year that he and Annie took the children to Black River, they bought their 
dry goods and supplies at Edison's General Store. Mark and Rya had fallen in love with 
Sam Edison the day they met him. Annie and Paul came under his spell nearly as quickly. 
By the end of their four-week vacation, they had come down from the mountain twice to 
have dinner at Edison's, and when they left for home they had promised to keep in touch 
with an occasional letter. The following year, Sam told them that they were not to go up 
into the mountains to set up camp after the long tiring drive from Boston. Instead, he 
insisted they spend the night at his place and get a fresh start in the morning. That 
first-night stop-over had become their yearly routine. By now Sam was like a grandfather 
to Rya and Mark. For the past two years, Paul had brought the children north to spend 
Christmas week at Edison's.
  Paul had met Jenny Edison just last year. Of course, Sam fiad mentioned his daughter 
many times. She had gone to Columbia and majored in music. In her senior year she married 
a musician and moved to California where he was playing in a band. But after more than 
seven years, the marriage had turned sour, and she had come home to get her wits about 
her and to decide what she wanted to do next. As proud a father as he had been, Sam had 
never shown pictures of her. That was not his style. On his first day in Black River last 
year, walking into Edison's where she was waiting on children at the candy
  counter-and catching sight of her-Paul had for a moment been unable to get his breath.
  It happened that quickly between them. Not love at first sight. Something more 
fundamental than love. Something more basic that had to come first, before love could 
develop. Instinctively, intuitively, even though he had been certain there could be no 
one after Annie, he had known that she was right for him. Jenny felt the attraction too, 
powerfully, immediately
  -but almost unwillingly.
  If he had told all of this to Rya, she would have said, "So why aren't you married?" If 
life were only that simple .
  After dinner, while Sam and the children washed the dishes, Paul and Jenny retired to 
the den. They propped their feet up on an antique woodcarver's bench, and he put his arm 
around her shoulder. Their conversation had been free and easy at the table, but now it 
was stilted. She was hard and angular under his arm, tense. Twice, he leaned over and 
kissed her gently on the corner of the mouth, but she remained stiff and cool. He decided 
that she was inhibited by the possibility that Rya or Mark or her father might walk into 
the room at any moment, and he suggested they take a drive.
  "I don't know . .
  He stood up. "Come on. Some fresh night air will be good for you."
  Outside, the night was chilly. As they got in the car, she said, "We almost need the 
heater."
  "Not at all," he said. "Just snuggle up and share body heat." He grinned at her. "Where 
to?"
  "I know a nice quiet little bar in Bexford."
  "I thought we were staying out of public places?"
  "They don't have the flu in Bexford," she said.
  "They don't? It's only thirty miles down the road."
  She shrugged. "That's just one of the curiosities of this plague."
  He put the car in gear and drove out into the street. "So be it. A quiet little bar in 
Bexford."
  She found an all-night Canadian radio station playing American swing music from the 
1940s. "No more talk for a while," she said. She sat close to him with her head against 
his shoulder.
  The drive from Black River to Bexford was a pleasant one. The narrow black-top road 
rose and fell and twisted gracefully through the lightless, leafy countryside. For miles 
at a time, trees arched across the roadway, forming a tunnel of cool night air. After a 
while, in spite of the Benny Goodman music, Paul felt that they were the only two people 
in the world-and that was a surprisingly agreeable thought.
  She was even lovelier than the mountain night, and as mysterious in her silence as some 
of the deep, unsettled northern hollows through which they passed. For such a slender 
woman, she had great presence. She took up very little space on the seat, and yet she 
seemed to dominate the car and overwhelm him. Her eyes, so large and dark, were closed, 
yet he felt as if she were watching him. Her face-too beautiful to appear in Vogue: she