“I think I just met the happiest person in the world,” Jovie remarked, as she laid a bundle of thirsty Queen Anne’s Lace in the kitchen sink.

Martin made some small reply from the next room. _The Herald _lay open over his lap and his tea sat undrank — a clenched bottom lip meant he was drowning in thought. 



Jovie didn’t wait for him to raise his head to continue, and spoke too softly to be heard over the running faucet, which was followed by the snipping of shears: “I met her coming along the road to Woodbridge. Such a shabby little thing, with spindly arms and a sunburnt nose. She was missing the lace on her left boot; had used it in building a fairy house, if I remember.” 

The shears and faucet were quiet now and Jovie swept dreamily into the living room with a crookedly-arranged vase. “She was me, about ten years ago; as surprised to meet me as I was. But we got along famously after a while, and romped through the hayfield all afternoon. I completely forgot there was such a thing as dishes or dirty sheets… or Adolf Hitler. Oh, we stayed there as long as we could— until I was as freckled and disheveled as she was, and Mr. Monroe’s hired man came along the road with his cows.” She set the vase on a side table, clicking on the lamp so he could read better.

But he had stopped reading, and folded a particularly frightening story back between the pages— willing it to stay there, catching her newly tanned fingers between his own. “And you would’ve stayed there forever if you could.” 

His eyes were heavy with their reading and his hair had been disaranged by anxious hands. But soft creases had formed beside his lips.

Jovie saw a little boy of ten in that smile.

“No,” was her slow reply, as she turned over the larger question behind the words in her mind. She was sitting on his chair’s arm, her gaze turned to the worn spots in the carpet. “Do you know, Martin, for all the worries we have known… With all of Europe catching fire, it seems. The world being so topsy-turvy as it is— But someone has to set it to rights, don’t they? Someone’s got to put that fire out, before there’s nothing left worth saving?”

Martin squeezed her hand, too swelled with secret pride to say anything. 

“No, I don’t think I’d go back forever. Even if I could. As splendid as it is to be the happiest person in the world, it takes very miserable ones to get anything done in it.”