A Robin Redbreast in a Cage

by R.P. Burnham

One thing Tris had learned about Ted was that he loved to do things on the spur of the moment. It was one of his most appealing characteristics and one that made her life interesting. He’d think of something, get excited about it, and do it instantly. When they got their new couch shortly after she moved in with him, he’d looked at the dingy walls, back to their new couch, and then stared into space for a moment before deciding the walls needed painting. It wasn’t a day, a week, or a month later, but that very day they went to the paint store, chose a golden color for the walls and white for the trim, returned home with the paint, plastic dropcloths, brushes, rollers, buckets, pans and spackle to repair holes in the wall, and during the rest of the weekend they’d painted. Other times he’d be reading a movie review in the newspaper one moment and mere hours later they’d be in the theater watching the movie, or he’d think of how much fun it would be to walk along the beach after a storm passed through and an hour later the salt-ladened air would be blowing her hair around. So on the day before Christmas when he called her into the living room from the kitchen and said, “Hey, I’ve just had a great idea,” Tris knew that she should be prepared for action. She looked at him expectantly with a wide smile on her face anticipating something of great fun and thinking of how much she loved this spontaneity of his.

  “Let’s get a Christmas tree!”

  “What? Now?”

  “Yeah. Don’tcha think it would be fun? I haven’t had one in years and I bet you haven’t either.”

  She hadn’t. When Charlie was young they had a small plastic one about two feet high that they put on a table and plugged in, making tiny colored lights shine; then years later it somehow disappeared and they had no tree. She remembered on the last Christmas they had as mother and child she’d been drinking so heavily and was so self-absorbed that she’d forgotten to get Charlie a present. For a moment the painful and shameful memory quelled the excitement she’d caught from Ted, and it took an effort to say, “No, it’s been years. But is that what you’ve been smiling about all day?”

  He smiled, sheepishly this time, from where he was sitting on the couch. “Nope. That’s something related but not it.” He stood and—because his bad leg was always stiff after sitting for any considerable time—limped across the room and removed a chair from beside the TV. “We could put the tree right here. Fits perfect.”

  “You know we don’t have any ornaments, lights and all that stuff?”

  “That’s what they got stores for. We can get that stuff easily, and with the bonus money the boss gave us for finishing the Wallace place, I got the money.”

  She smiled. “Okay. So where do we get the tree?”

  “I’ve got that covered too. Mr. Wallace’s house is upcountry and he owns at least a dozen acres of woods. He was so pleased with our work he let Larry cut a tree yesterday. He told me I could cut one too, but at the time the idea hadn’t hit me, so I said no thanks. But I’ll call him and ask.”

  It turned into a very interesting experience. Tris had almost never been in the woods. Despite living her whole life within a few miles of the forest, she was a thorough town-city girl. If anything, nature scared her. She imagined it filled with poisonous snakes, biting insects, bears and other dangerous animals, including crazy human beings, lurking in those wild places. She was terrified of mice and would cross the street if she saw a dog ahead of her. But with Ted she felt safe, and through his eyes she saw nature as beautiful. There were only a few inches of freshly fallen snow on the ground, so walking was easy and lack of footprints gave assurance that no one else, crazy or otherwise, was here. White trees with black patches which Ted said were birches shined radiantly while distant clumps of thick pine were a faded bluish-green the color of her favorite sweater. Even a fallen tree with half its bark gone and a ridge of snow partly melted looking as if it was balancing on the rounded top was pretty as a picture when they approached it. A patch of ice right in front of it mirrored the fallen tree. The air was crisp and clear, and with her coat on she felt the cold only as an invigorating stimulus to movement. Besides the occasional rumble of a distant car, it was very quiet with only the chattering of birds above their heads and the sounds of soft breezes scraping dead leaves across the snow for background noise. When they stopped once to admire the varying patches of sun and shade playing across an open space among the trees, she felt a peacefulness she’d never felt before. As they walked deeper into the woods, with Ted concentrating on searching for the perfect tree, the peaceful feeling grew stronger. She remembered her shamed pang of guilty regret for Charlie’s neglected Christmas, but here is did not sting. Somehow the beauty and peace she witnessed was inside and gave her an expansive feeling of hope. In this mood, Charlie was not lost forever. She began daydreaming of having Charlie living with Ted and her, but before it got too far it was interrupted by Ted’s excited voice. “What do you think of that one?” he asked, pointing to a thick pine over six feet tall.

  She liked its fullness of branch and its shape, but it was a little too big. She looked around to spot another well proportioned tree closer to her own height of five feet, five inches. “I think this one’s better,” she said. “It’ll fit beside the TV just right.”

  “Okay, he said, and with the saw he’d been carrying cut the tree in a few skillful stroke perfectly flat. On the ride back to town while Ted talked about the decorations and the stand he’d have to make, she found herself thinking of Charlie and wondering what she would think of the tree. After agreeing with him that besides the tinsel, bulbs and lights they would need a special ornament for the top of the tree which should not be an angel, since that was too religious, she asked him if he thought Charlie would like the tree.

  He seemed surprised by the question. “I would think she’d like it. Or do you mean to say those fundamentalists don’t do trees because they’re too pagan?”

  “No, no. What if it makes her think of the Christmases we used to have without one? Wouldn’t that bring up bad memories?”

  They were just turning down the street in town that led to the department store. Ted signaled to a car trying to make a left turn and nodded when the man waved his thanks. “She’ll have all those memories anyways, so I don’t think it will matter.”

  Getting the ornaments, lights, tinsel and so forth, including a star for the top of the tree, interrupted the discussion on Charlie, and when they got home it was deferred further while Ted made a stand for the Christmas tree with some scrap lumber and they decorated it. Once the lights were turned on they were so gleeful they both shouted their joy as they admired the tree from many different angles and lighting conditions. Then because it was still an hour and half before the time for even an early supper, Ted decided to make a batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies from a recipe he learned from his mother, something he said he used to do every Christmas when his kids were young.

  Tris sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea and having a cigarette while he made the batter. Charlie was still on her mind, and eventually she brought her up again. “I keep wondering about what can we do to change Charlie’s mind. She’ll be twenty-one in a little over a year.”

  “Age don’t matter. Eighteen’s the legal age now, anyways. But she could decide to leave that church right now if she wanted to. We can only do so much. Whatever happens has gotta happen in her own mind, and mostly she’s got to see that her uncle’s teachings are false on her own.”

  “Yeah, but like I told you I’m pretty sure she already sees a lot of that stuff. I know she doesn’t like it that her cousin is being forced to marry some guy in her church. And she doesn’t say so, but I know she doesn’t like some of their rules like girls not being allowed to play sports or the ridiculous clothes they made her wear.”

  “What about that business of your brother spying on you in the bathroom? You could tell her about that.”

  She shook her head doubtfully. “Would she believe it? And besides, I’d rather spare her that kind of sick knowledge.”

  Ted was spo
oning the batter onto a baking pan. With his back to her he said, “You mean win her back fair and square?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “ Well,” he said after putting the cookies into the already hot oven, “my nephew Jeff came around on his own. Really, I think that’s the best we can hope for. It’s just like us deciding not to drink. We had to do it ourselves. So what we need is patience. We can hint and we can nudge her in the right direction, but she’s gotta see it all in her own mind before she changes. One thing I think is promising.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your brother. If he’s even half as creepy as you say, and I’m sure he is, she’s already noticed it or will soon.”

  “Yeah, I think she does already—a bit at least, maybe a lot.”

  With that remark the subject was dropped if not forgotten while the cookies baked and filled the apartment with their wonderful aroma and through the rest of the evening with first a light supper and then their first Christmas together. Exchanging gifts became an occasion for much laughter. Once shopping together after Thanksgiving she had looked at a cashmere sweater she thought exquisite but put it down because it was too expensive; at the same time in the same department store he had looked at and wistfully tried out a beautiful fly fishing rod. Both had noticed the other’s interest and both had got their love the gift they wanted. Laughing and thanking him with a kiss and hug, she felt very happy and very contented.

  She sat down on the couch as he excused himself to get something else. When he returned he had a strange smile on his face as he walked up to her. He paused, rubbed his chin, then looked at her and smiled again, appeared unsure of how to proceed. But now recognizing the smile as kin to the smile that had often broken across his face earlier in the day, she had a presentiment. Suddenly on edge she looked into his eyes.

  “I’ve been thinking… that we’re doing all right together. I’m thinking we can make a go of it… You know, mutual support and partners. Love is what I’m thinking. But you know all that, I’m betting. You know I love you and want to marry you.” With those words he dropped to his knee (carefully because of his bad leg, but still quite quickly) and took from a tiny velvet box a ring.

  Tris gave out a little scream that merged into a squeal of delight and felt her heart pounding as she felt him slipping the ring onto her finger. Then the feeling was pure blinding joy that was beyond words as they kissed and embraced, with him awkwardly leaning forward from his knees. She told him it was the happiest moment of her life, and it was as she spoke, but almost instantly a stabbing fear seized her and she felt her face drop. What right did she have to be happy? Charlie’s hurt, lonely face came into her mind from that night the cops took her away. She felt her face burn red with shame. She tried to shake it off, saying, “Ted, this is so wonderful it’s almost unbelievable.”

  But he saw it all and read it on her face. Miraculously he said just the right words that she needed to hear. “I know what you’re thinking, Tris. I sometime think of all the suffering I caused Laura, so I know. You’re thinking of Charlie, aren’t you? You think you don’t deserve to be happy.”

  The soothing words brought a quiet relief, but she silently appealed to him with her eyes, which he also understood. Awkwardly he stood up, only to instantly slide beside her and take her in his arms. “You’re going to make it all up to her—all that you can. You have to realize, though, that the past can’t be changed. It’s what we have to live with. We suffered too, remember. And remember that things in our lives we had no control over caused our suffering. Accept that it happened and make the amends that are possible—that’s my philosophy. And don’t forget you’re not alone—that’s my philosophy too. We have each other. Together we’re twice as strong. I love you and will go on loving you. Us, together.”

  Enveloped in his loving warmth she felt calm as if nothing could harm her as long as he was there. She remembered Dr. Tellas’s description of a real relationship and how she had doubted she would ever experience one, and could almost have laughed in wonderment at the way her life had changed. “I love you too, Ted. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Through the rest of the day and evening she was so happy that she would often tremble to release the pent-up joy. Charlie was there in her mind, but every time the thought of her was in danger of dominating and distracting her mind she checked it with one word: patience. She kept looking at the ring or surreptitiously feeling it; even waking in the night and thinking it was all a dream, she touched the small diamond with her right index finger to remind her of its sweet reality. In the morning Ted left to spent some time with each of his kids. That he was going to visit his ex-wife Laura was the main reason she did not accompany him. The other reason was that she wanted to clean the apartment and make everything perfect for Charlie’s first visit to her home. She dusted, vacuumed, scrubbed the bathroom, and washed the kitchen floor, then spent a long time rearranging furniture, knickknacks and the like to achieve maximum effect; though truth to tell, after moving the couch here and the rocking chair there, nudging a carved bird of Ted’s a few inches to the left, and moving books to a lower shelf, in the end when Ted came back home everything was in the same place it was before all her fidgeting.

  At a little after one o’clock Charlie came. In one small way, the visit started off badly. Despite all the time she’d spent cleaning and tidying up the place to make it look as pretty as possible so that Charlie would be struck by the difference between the old hovel they lived in and the brightness and niceness of her new home, when she arrived she took no notice of the surroundings. Her mind seemed to be elsewhere—possibly because she was preoccupied with her first meeting with Ted. But if her daughter noticed nothing new, she did. Charlie was miles away from the awkward kid that she raised; instead she was an even more confident and self-possessed young woman than she was last summer. When she removed her winter coat after putting two wrapped presents on the table by the door and hugging her, Tris noticed her breasts under her light blue sweater and the pretty tight skirt, beige in color, that she wore. It’s true that the skirt covered most of her legs, but she was learning color coordination and dressing as closely as possible like a normal girl of her age. The discovery pleased her so much that she dismissed her disappointment about the apartment as trivial.

  “You’re looking great, Charlie. Quite the young woman now.”

  She smiled and she looked over Tris’s shoulder at Ted as she said, “Thanks, Mom.”

  She turned and took Ned’s hand to bring him forward. “Charlie, this is Ted.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Ted.” She smiled sweetly and Tris felt relieved. Just as she had done when she first met him, Charlie recognized something gentle and sweet in the man and liked him instantly even before he had said a word.

  “And I’m very pleased to meet you too,” he said, holding out his hand, which Charlie took. “I feel I already know you. Your mother here”—he pointed with his thumb and made a comic face as if she were his general—“is very proud of you and talks about you all the time.”

  The remark made Charlie feel uncomfortable. She dropped her eyes and appeared confused, probably because she correctly understood that the topic of conversations about her entailed schemes to rescue her from the clutches of her uncle.

  It put Tris on guard, but she decided an open admission would not only be honest but effective too. “Don’t worry, Charlie,” she said trying to be light-hearted about it, “we aren’t planning to kidnap you. But I have told Ted my opinion of my brother.”

  “He’s a minister,” Charlie explained to Ted. “He acts different than most guardians because of that.”

  It was a weak defense, Tris thought, but that Charlie didn’t give anything more away disappointed her. “Hey,” she said, “never mind that now. I have some wonderful news.” She raised her hand and flashed the engagement ring in front of Charlie’s eyes.

  “Is that what I think it is!?”

  Tri
s smiled broadly and instead of nodding bobbed her head vigorously. “I just got it last night. It’s the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten.”

  “Oh, Mom. That’s great! Congratulations”—she turned and looked at Ted—“to both of you. I’m very happy for you both.”

  “Well, we’ve been together long enough to know it’s going to be a marriage made in heaven,” Ted said.

  “And when will it take place?”

  “Sometime in the spring or early summer. Right now the only thing we’re sure of is that we don’t want to get married in the winter.” Tris looked at the gifts Charlie had placed on the table. “Shall I put some tea water on before we exchange gifts? We can have some oatmeal-raisin cookies Ted baked with the tea.”

  Charlie looked at Ted for an explanation.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m handy around the house too,” he said with a droll expression that made Charlie grin.

  Tris felt herself smiling at this further proof that Ted and Charlie were hitting it off nicely, but as they went into the kitchen she saw her daughter looking at her grandmother’s black vase with the hand-painted roses. She seemed much disturbed by seeing it as if it, the one and only nice thing in their old apartment, was flooding her mind with everything else that was not beautiful and precious in that dump they lived in. Not wanting Charlie to be distracted by dark, unchangeable memories, she asked in a cheerful, sunshiny voice, “Well, what do you think of our home?”

  “I love it,” she said, recovering her good spirits. “It’s nicely decorated and bright and cheerful.”

  In the small kitchen, which had room for only a narrow, six-foot counter and a small table with two chairs, Tris poured some water into the teapot and turned the gas burner on. “It’s a new skill I’ve developed.” She tried to be modest, but she could not stop herself from smiling proudly and feeling a rush of joy and pure happiness. “Now that I don’t drink I have money to buy nicer furniture. We’re getting some more stuff—our dining room table is really old and we need a dresser in the bedroom—but Ted doesn’t believe in buying on credit so we’re waiting until a couple more paychecks come in.”

  “What do you do, Ted? I don’t think my mother told me.”

  “Me? I do the same work Jesus did. I’m a carpenter.”

  For a moment Tris feared his choice of words was unwise and Charlie might think they were blasphemous, but all she said was, “That’s a skilled occupation. You must know a lot of stuff.”

  “I suppose I do, but of course it’s the sort of thing that all carpenters know.”

  Just in case the conversation got too dangerous, Tris said, “When the water’s boiled we can have the cookies and tea. Shall we exchange gifts while waiting?”

  This went well. She knew that material things cannot make up for moral failings, and yet the message conveyed by a special gift can still speak to the heart. That was what the expensive and nice watch with a gold link strap that she got for Charlie seemed to do. Her daughter was genuinely touched and pleased with the gift, and the loving look she gave her mother spoke of her understanding of the feelings that lay behind it.

  She in turn was very happy with the thoughtful gifts Charlie got her. In a letter in the fall she had told her daughter that Ted loved Chinese food. With that in mind the sweet girl had gone out and bought a wok and Chinese cookbooks.

  She knew something about the prices for kitchen utensils, having purchased several for their apartment lately. While they were having their tea and cookies, she hinted that she was worried Charlie had spent too much of her meager resources on the gift. But Charlie only smiled proudly and explained that she was working in the publicity department at the college and receiving a monthly salary.

  That explained some of her new-found self-confidence. As someone who had seen professional success translate to personal growth, she could understand her daughter’s proud smile. She was proud of her too. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Charlie. What sort of things do you do?”

  “Oh, you know. I write stuff for brochures and catalogs prospective students receive, and when some interesting news happens at the college like having an eminent speaker come, I’m the one who writes that stuff up for the local paper. It’s training, you see, for the job I’m going to do for the church after graduation. But really, Mom, your news is much more interesting than mine. Who’s coming to the wedding?”

  “Well, it’s going to be small, so probably just Ted’s kids, his brother and two sisters and you—I hope.”

  She turned to Ted, who was leaning against the sink while they sat at the small kitchen table. “How old are your kids, Ted?”

  “Mike would be just about your age. Melissa just graduated from C.A. last June. Perhaps you knew my son, Mike McNaughton.”

  She searched her memory. “Not personally, but I seem to remember he was a computer whizz and worked on the school newspaper.”

  Ted nodded. “That’s him. He’s going to Worcester Polytech now studying computer science. Melissa is planning to get married close to the time we are, so she’s not going to college. She was never much of a scholar.”

  “So they’ll be there.”

  “And we hope you will too, Charlie,” Tris said.

  “I will if it’s after school gets out.”

  “You, ah, won’t have any problems, will you?” Ted asked.

  When she looked puzzled, he said, “I mean from your uncle.”

  “I don’t see how he could object.”

  “Well, I just meant I’m not his kind of Christian, so maybe he wouldn’t like you to be there.”

  “Oh,” she said hopefully, but you are a Christian?”

  He stroked his chin thoughtfully but with the slightest hint of comic exaggeration. Well, yes and no. There’s a lot of wisdom in the Bible—”

  —“Oh, there is—”

  “But a lot of bad stuff too, like the Israelites slaughtering people, slavery and sexism and all. They acted no different than their enemies.”

  She nodded gravely. “I think people wrote the word of God in terms that people of that time would understand. It was a savage time. That’s why you see stuff like whole towns being slaughtered. A lot of the Old Testamanet is just history of the Israelites. There’s a lot of beautiful holy writing too.”

  Ted raised his eyebrows as he exchanged a glance with Tris. She recalled him saying that believing in the inerrancy of the Bible was the toughest nut to crack when his nephew was being weaned from fundamentalist doctrine. Charlie was already past that problem. It didn’t, though, seem to make any difference. She was showing no signs of disillusionment. Maybe she was hiding it well; maybe minor inconsistencies didn’t bother her because she bought wholesale the big picture. Maybe she would always be a fundamentalist Christian and lost to her. That’s what worried her now, at least. The hopefulness she felt before Charlie came was the thing that seemed illusionary to her.

  But Ted wasn’t giving up that easily. “I’m sure you’re right, but I think God asks only one thing from us.”

  “Which is?”

  “Well, the man upstairs, he sees all, doesn’t he? And he created us, didn’t he? Which means he can understand the human heart, both when it’s good and when it’s bad. But I think all he really wants from us is that we have good hearts. You see what I’m saying? He would rather have decent people living decent lives and caring for others.”

  “Is that your religion?”

  He shrugged comically—which helped Charlie relax, Tris thought. “I guess it is.”

  “But how is that enough?”

  Ted put his teacup down on the counter. He’d been holding it in his right hand and seemed to just remember it was there. “It depends on you conception of God, I suppose. He’s the creator of the universe, so why would he need people praising him—it’s like he was an insecure guy, not God. God does not need us; we need him, that’s my point.”

  Tris could tell that Charlie was confused. Some of Ned’s statements seemed to belittle religion while others r
ecognized God’s presence.

  “But as you say, he made us and we need him. That means we should be humble before him. Humility—that’s one of the best virtues of religion.”

  “Humble? Yes, I suppose we should be. We’re all weak in one way or another, so there’s no need to get puffed up about anything.”

  “They call it the sin of pride, don’t they?” Tris asked. She was thinking of her brother.

  “Yes,” Charlie said. Turning to Ted she asked, “What church did you grow up in?”

  “Catholic. There’s a lot of ritual in that church, you know. The older I got the more I noticed how everyone including the priest said the mass and the responses in a drone, like a lawn mower two blocks away. People were just repeating things from habit. It wasn’t real. There was no soul in it. So when I was older I stopped being a Catholic.”

  “My church is different,” Charlie said. “People put their whole heart and soul into their worship.”

  “I know. I’ve seen some of those services on television. I’ve seen black churches too.”

  “Isn’t that better—to be surrendering yourself to the Lord and feeling the joy?”

  Ted started to speak then hesitated. He scratched his head, looked at the floor, and then seemed to come to a decision. “I don’t deny there’s plenty of feeling and plenty of sincerity, but who are they feeling good about? Ain’t it themselves? Ain’t they only thinking of themselves and how happy they’re going to be in heaven? When I say God wants us to have a good heart, I mean by that a person thinks of others and tries to ease the pain of others. A lot of those evangelical ministers on TV always support our wars and seem to gloat when we bomb our so-called enemies. I’ve been in war and it’s awful. It’s awful what those leaders want us to do to other boys. I ask myself, would Jesus gloat? Would Jesus be a war hawk?”

  Tris could tell Charlie was very uncomfortable hearing such a disturbing description of evangelical ministers.

  “I had a high-school biology teacher who said something like that. He said as long as you have Jesus in your heart the rest doesn’t matter.”

  “He may be right. I don’t know. But I think having a good heart is just as good. Life ain’t easy. I’ve known people who do bad things from desperation, like breaking into a house to steal stuff for drug money. There’s plenty of kids who’ve had awful parents and were neglected and do bad things. We can’t be judgmental. We need to have compassion.”

  Charlie looked at her mother and dropped her eyes in embarrassment. Ted’s remark made Tris just as uncomfortable as well, though she knew he was making a point, not a judgment. She looked at him.

  “My point is that bad things happen. They lead to further bad things. Me and Tris know all about that. We were alcoholics—”

  “We are alcoholics and always will be,” Tris corrected, remembering the A.A. teachings.

  Ted nodded. “Now we’re alcoholics who don’t drink.”

  “I know,” Charlie said in a low voice. “I think you’ve both shown tremendous courage and strength.”

  “So maybe the man upstairs helped us, who knows? It takes humbleness to know your human weakness—that and patience and endurance. But one thing I’m quite sure about—it doesn’t take rules and obedience to them to be a good human being.”

  Charlie toyed with her teacup, holding it in both hands and nervously rotating it on the table. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”

  Ted, watching her teacup, seemed fixated by the motion, which in turn made Charlie self-consciously stop. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that God gave us our minds. Humbleness is often good, but is obedience? I mean someone, an army buddy I think, told me he always thought when he had a doubt it was Satan whispering in his ear. That’s what he was taught, you see.”

  Tris saw a look of almost panic dart across Charlie’s eyes.

  “He said he finally saw that it just stops you from thinking on your own. But to be a good person you’ve got to do what you think is right. God gave us our minds. We’ve got to use them—and our hearts.”

  Charlie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t seem to know how to answer Ted. Tris, seeing her discomfort and distress, felt a motherly instinct and wanted to protect her. “Hey, you guys, it’s Christmas day. Enough of this philosophy stuff. Who wants another cookie or more tea?”

  Her light-hearted tone changed the mood, and the rest the visit passed without incident. Charlie described her work at the college in more detail, and a question about how Ted made the Christmas stand led to his explaining at length various secrets of the carpenter’s art, all of which Charlie listened to with genuine interest. She didn’t seem to hold any grudge against Ted for making her squirm, and when she departed she even gave him as warm a hug as she had given her mother. Tris, remembering Ted’s wisdom, whispered “I love you” into Charlie’s ear, and Charlie said “I love you too, Mom” before the door closed.

  When she was gone and they were cleaning up, Ted explained that he knew he was making Charlie uncomfortable as he used some of the experiences and stuff his nephew had told him helped him escape the fundamentalists. He knew how important regaining her daughter was to her and apologized if he went too far.

  “I think you must have been very effective because she did looked confused and uncomfortable quite often.”

  Ted nodded. “I’ll tell you what, though. I bet you anything that I didn’t say a thing that she hadn’t already thought about.”

  “She’s very intelligent,” Tris agreed. “You’re probably right.”

  “But don’t forget, it won’t happen overnight.” He dried the last teacup and put it in the cupboard, then turned to her and chucked her playfully under the chin. “What’s the magic word we have to remember.”

  She nuzzled him, laying her face on his chest. “Patience,” she said. “Patience, patience, patience.”

  Planting a Seed