The Carousel (42 page)

Now another thought came: He had remembered her birthday last week. He had sent flowers,
The Collected Poems of Auden
, and a box of chocolates. She was always lamenting that she was a “chocaholic,” and he was always telling her that with a figure like hers, she could afford to be.

You’re looking for trouble, Margaret. You’re seeing things that are not there.

Almost at her feet, a chipmunk emerging from hibernation went racing beside the wall. And watching his erratic, zigzag flight, she wondered about the tiny brain, what its motivation to reverse direction might have been, and what the tiny eye might have noticed that she, standing right there, had not seen.

Zig. Zag. Things seen by some, not seen by others.

Slowly now, she turned into the street. Her mother, who was religious, liked to say, “God doesn’t give anybody more trouble than he can bear.” Perhaps so, but from the little that Margaret had yet seen of living, she doubted it.

If Adam ever leaves me, she thought again, I shall die, no matter what Mom thinks. Or, no, I shan’t die, but I shall want to. I shall go on living and wanting to be dead, which is worse than being dead.