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            Lithe Paxton stepped back from the row of green bean plants she’d been weeding, slipping the new growth of beans during her brief absence inside the shape of the ‘tee-pee’ lodge shape to gain length and size without being toughened by the sun’s direct glare. She grimaced on standing at the pull on the small of her back. She watched the man bathing in the river without being obvious, amazed at the compactness of the thick, muscular body. He had neither a waist nor a potbelly but seemed to be solid muscle from head to foot, all of which was visible. For the first two years of the three years they’d been neighbors, she’d been embarrassed by catching glimpsed of his enforced nudity but he had come to accept the necessity for avoiding certain manufactured chemicals and was respectful of her, never thrusting his body or personality on her with malicious contempt for her ingrained modesty, and she pretty much forgot about it except for the occasional and accidental glance of frontal anatomy. It was the size and shape of his nibbles that drove her into a reddened blush. She’d no experience with anything but ‘rosebud’ shaped ends to a breast, and she had no idea previously that they could be so dark or protrude into a cone shape! Unlike her rowdy new neighbors at the start of the deep forest land which ended in Mister Jerry’s gate, who were first year “Back to the Earth” sorts from the City who seemed to delight in confrontations with their conservative neighbors and a flair for exhibitionism!

            ‘Now she had more to dread than ever from a return visit by her parents’, she thought unhappily. After a decade of being alone most of the year, Mr. Jerry had accepted her quiet presence and seemed to take an avuncular interest in her new works. Although he was careful to hide it, he felt the same way she did, amazed that she could make a living by forcing clay into pots, coloring them and sending them out into the world like innocent young children, vulnerable to the fates.  ‘Well’, she corrected herself with a slightly frown of pain. ‘He felt, like she did, amazed that she could earn such a good living selling little, clay pots! ‘

            She saw the carnage left by the hungry children and adults who’d raided her garden in her five-day absence to San Leonardo and no matter how hard she tried to shove down the anger, it returned with each new awareness of the carelessly stripped and tromped hillside. Because they obeyed no rules but whim, they seemed to feel they were encased in a protective bubble wherever their drugged minds lead them, so they didn’t have to follow rules meant for others either. “No boundaries” meant they didn’t recognize hers!  The only good thing she could find was that they’d kept away the deer or she wouldn’t have anything green growing above ground! She used to cry at the death of Bambi’s mother in the full color cartoon, until she had to fight them for her green bean shoots! She struggled with the need to confront them even knowing its futility! The founder of their small enterprise had gotten tired of ‘being hassled’ by authorities who felt someone should be held accountable for the noise and the squalor of seventeen people, including two nursing babies and three children who ran around naked and dirty, squatting at will. They’d fled the increasing police crackdown on the Haight Ashbury and seemed to feel that anything with bark and leaves was their private domain where they could do as they will, and that the wires and fence posts she’d purchased to define her boundaries were simply theirs for the taking without the cost.  Tired of being held accountable for the men and women who’d drifted past this wooded, less densely populated side of the mountain and been snagged on the dreams he espoused for brotherhood and unity, he’d packed his brightly painted Volkswagen van, taken the two ‘earth mother’ women he’d arrived with and ‘split’ for a commune they heard was being formed in Taos that was being run by ‘real’ Hippies, like them, and the remaining thirteen people simply drifted from one cabin to another, living in them until the smell became too strong then placing blankets and old box springs under the trees in the delight of ‘going native.’  Which, like everything else in ‘me-speak’ meant evading responsibility unless it was their idea, and something else to the people forced to live with the noise, smells, and lack of consideration.

            When she’d found all of her kiln wood wet with urine, which gave off a noxious odor when burned, she’d gone ballistic and invaded the center of the once tidy tourist camp and wrecked havoc on anything she could lay her hands on for the first minutes of her rage! They’d threatened to call the police on her and she begged them too! The only good thing was like her mother pointed out. They’d only be here for the summer and even though they’d discovered the black and white police cruiser so evident from the freeway was only a cut out, she hoped its presence would be enough of a reminder of the ‘real world’, or the world that was real to most of the rest of them at least, would cause them to leave behind the manure rags and pot shoots from seeds fallen into the fertile ground would give her back her ‘quiet kingdom in the deep woods’. Now if she could just parent-proof her life she’d have it made!

            Unlike her own mother, who was gentle to a fault, her mother was a brittle person, easily wounded, who never forgot nor forgave, and while she had struggled against this in her teens and twenties, now as she approached her thirty-first birthday she found herself more tender and protective of her, as if their roles had changed in the on-going closeness between herself and her grandmother Vignette, who had been named by the town librarian after a lovely word she chanced to see as she was attempting to formula a name for her first daughter after five boys, that wouldn’t hearken back to The Olde Days. A time and a place Lithe idolized, to Etta’s cheerful dismay, claiming that it was only she hadn’t lived through it, but it was more. The stories her grandmother told were of dark, narrow clefts between great green mountains, and family as solid as the bedrock from which the Chestnuts and the Pines wrestled life. Lithe tried hard to be sympathetic, but frankly, she understood Zuza’s allure to her father, even while she felt personally grieved by the fact of infidelity between partners so long married. It was what made her break it off with Peter after being together for eight years when she realized her mother was right, he had no intention of marrying her so they could have children; although the crude “I told you so. Why should he pay for the cow when he can have the milk for free’ remark made her wish to avoid Charlotte as much as her dad Charles did!

            “  Why is a naked man weeding in your garden, Dear?  “  Her grandmother asked in her oddly melodious voice.

            At first it seemed to be a rhetorical question but when her grandmother refused to walk away from the window, she sighed and walked over to distract her.

            “ Is that the one who thinks he’s Jesus?  “ 

            Her father’s attempt at making light of a situation that left him red-cheeked with embarrassment set her mother off like a match held to the fuse of a string of firecrackers in which every aspect of Lithe’s life and livelihood fell under severe and acrimonious distain.

            “  He’s the only one who even came by from the commune to try and repair the damage they made while I was gone, you got to give him so credit!  “

            “ Oh I do, but he isn’t Jewish. Why would he think he’s the Lord?  “ Her grandmother continued, in a voice that accepted rather than pitied.

            “  How do you know he isn’t Jewish?  “  Charlotte snapped, in blanket condemnation that had yet to be lifted.

            Etta turned a bright red, but her eyes sparkled with mischief.

            “  See for yourself, Dear.  “  She said in a pleasant voice, walking away with a quick touch of warning on her son-in-law’s arm as he frowned, looking at the caller ID on his cell phone, debating whether or not to step outside and answer it.

            “  She’s already mad as hell with me, Granny! “  He said in deliberate provocation, lumping her with the woman he was fast learning to hate.

            “  Your dear mother never taught you to use those words, My Darling Boy.  “  Etta Hendrickson replied in tender rebuke as Lithe winced, looking away from the unhappy scene.

            While she was outside, offering the stunned deputy the use of Peter’s overcoat. The Gentle Soul, the only name she knew him by, bent down and kissed her cheek sweetly, as if grateful for her attempts to ease the older man’s obvious discomfort, and he looked deeply into her eyes, as no one had done since her early days of lust with Peter that she’d mistaken for love, and his smile touched her in a way she couldn’t have guessed half an hour before, but when she turned around, her mother and father were arguing, throwing punches at one another while Chas tried to pull her away from the car door, wanting to claim the ready access for himself.

            “  Not much of a birthday present, is it, my darling?  “  Etta asked in a sweet, sad voice, as she linked arms with her taller granddaughter. “  I called the cab company. They’ll be here in less than an hour. At least we can contain this evil to one day. I’m so disappointed in my little girl. She was so pretty as a child, it was hard to say no to her. Try not to make the same mistake with yours, Precious.  “  She said, patting a chilled hand on Lithe’s arm and breaking free to walk back into the house before she was betrayed by her tears.

            Two days later Lithe’s heart caught in her throat as she noticed smoke rising over the thick stand of Red Madrone and spindly Pines along the river bank, but when she raced to the site, she found three fire trucks of varying sizes already in place, as volunteer firefighters and student firemen from the University watched or participated in keeping the flames away from the surrounding areas. Not an easy task given the volatility of the trees and the fallen pine needles.

            “  You like watching fires?  “  A male voice asked pleasantly, drawing Lithe away from her profound fascination.

            “  Yes, thank you!  “  She stammered, evading his retraining hand as she raced toward her car to put the idea and color combinations down on paper before she forgot.

She didn’t even pay any attention to her grandmother’s light knock on her workshop door until a blast of warm, pine scented air riffled the papers she’d been sketching on with pastels and colored ink pens, attempting top recreate the magic she’d seen within the flame. The entire idea of changing over to work in glossy porcelain had daunted her, when she was receiving such high praise with her Stone Ware and extruded, soda fired porcelain wares, but the idea rose in her mind like a jeweled Phoenix as she looked up impatiently at the intrusion.

            “  This nice gentleman wants to speak with you, Dear. It seems urgent. “

            She looked up at him and smiled as he stared gap mouthed at the lovely woman with her cheeks afire and her eyes alight with a passion he’d never suspected ano0ther person capable of emoting.

            Frank Dresher wet his lips twice, in a vain attempt to speak, and then realized, he couldn’t remember his own name, much less why he’d followed after her in such heated pursuit of what he assumed to be a ‘fire bug’. Nothing like this had ever happen to him in thirty-five years of existence!  

            Lithe stood angrily, ready to defend her kingdom against the unwarranted intruder but he was already taking a step backwards, giving her room even before she pushed herself from the back of the desk where she’d been hastily scribbling.

            “ Don’t be impolite, Child. “  

            “ It’s my fault… I shouldn’t have busted in. I’m sorry. Perhaps we can talk out here? “

            Lithe hesitated. The small, smoky room suddenly seemed the only protection for her as he reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a small rectangle that revealed an official looking badge. But she couldn’t think of any reason to be able to stay indoors. She hesitated at the doorway, since the foot-and-a-half height differential under the small shed allowed them to see one another eye to eye. At least physically.. She gripped the sill hard, to keep from losing control and she hated herself for this disposed ’feminine’; attribute’ of weakness, but she’d never been in trouble with the Law before, not even so much as a solitary summons to the principal’s office in school. .

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            “ An arson inspector? “  Etta inquired as she poured out the green tea she’s steeped while chatting with the gregarious stranger who turned out to ‘have people’ in the next town. Lithe wanted to shove them both into the small ceramic teapot and stomp on them till them mushed in enough to let her slam the lid down on them and get back to work. Shockingly, the idea of the phoenix like bird rising up from a ring of flames spiraling around the slender cylinder hadn’t fled her with the interruption, as nebulous ideas usually did on a rude awakening, like being jarred from a dream you vainly hope to remember, but instead it grew more real in her silences, and only her grandmother seemed to understand.

            “  My granddaughter made this pot for me as part of a set. However you call it. ‘Cast”? “Threw” I forget. “ She smiled vaguely in Lithe’s direction, passing the thread of conversation to her, but Lithe just sat there, staring past hem both.

            “ Excuse me. “  She said at last and simply stood up, leaving them to their tea and snippets of conversation that held no interest for her.

            She almost didn’t answer the phone as she walked into the overly warm house, but as soon as she heard her father’s voice she was grateful she hadn’t. She didn’t want to take sides in their bitter domestic dispute, but she’d always been “Daddy’s Girl”.

            “  I fear that lovely young thing is going to learn a hard lesson. If he did with you, he’ll do it to you. “  Etta said with a strange longing to the sadness in her voice as Lithe relayed the news of her parent’s impending divorce so he could marry his long time lover.

            “  You wouldn’t want to stay a lifetime with someone you weren’t happy with? “ 

            Etta smiled at the earnestness of her granddaughter’s defense of a loved, but suddenly imperfect parent and an innate sense of delicacy not to push where the flesh or soul as already torn prevented her from speaking the lecture seared into her heart by her own early experiences.

            “  I’ll be leaving Wednesday, as dearly as I’ve enjoyed this time with you, my sweet Childe. So I’ll only ask you this one other time. “

            “  Mister Jerry couldn’t apologize enough. He didn’t realize you were hanging out clothes when he came by…  “