Some Things About Flying by Joan Barfoot Page B

years later, to hold that against her. Only it’s been hard not to take silent jabs; just to let some of the air out.
    â€œThe thing is, Lila,” Tom explained (or tried to explain, she wasn’t a very sympathetic listener), “she and I have known each other so long and been through so much. A lot of feelings may be different now, but I can’t throw out a whole history.” A kind of amputation, Lila supposed, not a surgery happily undertaken even for the sake of substantial rewards.
    Naturally, the words “have cake, eat it too” sprang to mind, but then, many words came to mind.
    Anyway, it’s necessary to give attention to what is, not always what is not; if for no other reason than to avoid becoming one of those people who moan and grieve about flawed parents, faulty childhoods, rotten teachers, crazy bosses, blaming and blaming, no mercy at all.
    Unless actual crimes are involved, Lila has little patience with that. Her own parents were flawed, and her own childhood faulty, and exactly whose isn’t? But look at what became of her; at what, good and bad, they helped her become.
    As Tom quite properly and frequently says—although not, as it happens, in these circumstances today—“We should enjoy what we do have, not regret what we don’t.”
    For the most part, it seems to Lila, he is, stubbornly and unreasonably, an optimist. Unlike her, he doesn’t often, on the road to cheer, get tripped up, waylaid, by a dissenting and unruly mind.
    They may have different outlooks, but nevertheless they do have much in common: their talents, for one thing, which lean more towards consuming than creating. Lila has laboured over two books of textual scrutiny and no broad fascination—who in the larger world especially cares about comparative influences of rural and urban geographies in particular novels by English and North American women?—although they were interesting enough to her, and excellent exercises. Tom tosses off (although he does not, he crafts them slowly and scrupulously, sometimes phoning her in search of just the right verb) his political analyses for various media, but she doesn’t think either of them could say they’ve actually made much of anything, not from scratch, starting from nothing.
    Also, they both live by their wits. Their hands are smooth, their bodies relatively unmuscled, but Lila imagines their brains toughened and calloused and wiry with regular and strenuous use.
    At the moment she’d like to be able to shut off her mind, let it go limp, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
    Tom’s mind is another matter. Here’s something she’s never seen before: his eyes open so wide the white shows all the way around the irises. He looks like descriptions she’s read of terrified horses trapped in a barn fire. Horses apparently panic and don’t know how to escape. They lose their heads in smoke.
    Perhaps she should slap him. She owes him one.
    What will she do if he turns out to be one of the people here who fall apart, come unstuck, implode, explode, whatever?
    On the other hand, she hasn’t begun to imagine how to be, herself. Some previously unknown, unfamiliar aspect may well, for all she knows, tap-tap its way to the top.
    Leaning towards him, she puts a hand on each of his. At least they’re together. They’ve had their ups and downs, and it’s each other’s fault they’re here in the first place, but if there’s any comfort at all, it’s that he’s beside her.
    Sort of beside her. Beside her in his fashion. “Sorry,” he says finally. A faint flush of blood is returning, and he’s losing that ridiculous pop-eyed look. He looks towards her; not quite at her, though. As if he is embarrassed by something that just occurred in his own private life, his eyes are cast down and shifting.
    Well. She certainly knows that expression, and this is really, seriously,