“Here is a brighter garden,” Eve said to Adam. She gestured to the vast hills, rolling into the horizon. Adam was moody, feeling she’d been responsible for their predicament.
“Don’t make it a predicament,” she urged. “It’s not such a big deal. Look at all this before us!”
Adam didn’t like it. He didn’t like what was before him. “There are too many choices,” he said. “Which way do we go?”
She was getting tired of justifying their banishment. In addition, she was beginning to like the sounds of the word: the”ish,” the “ment,” a condition. It had a good rhythm. He was childish. “But they’re all good choices. I’ll pick one for us—”
“No, no. I’ve listened to you once,” he said. “No more.”
And here they were again with the old argument. She couldn’t bear to say the words once more, but she did: “You didn’t have to. You didn’t have to listen to me.” She knew what she said would provoke his old and chlidish justification. She wasn’t wrong.
“You would’ve gotten mad if I hadn’t,” he said. “You always want things your way. It’d have been hell for me to pay.”
“What?” she said, stopping in the track she had chosen for them.
“A figure of speech,” he said.
She paused, wondering, not for the first time, why she had married him. There hadn’t been any other choices, though; at least she hadn’t seen any others. Besides, Adam could be attractive, sexy even. Just too whiny.
He changed the subject. “Where are the kids?”
Eve looked around. “They’re coming. I told them which way we were heading. Oh! I see Aaron’s head. See? Beyond that mulberry bush back there.”
Adam looked alarmed. “Isn’t that where the –”
“No,” not there. “That—he—was in the orchard. He’s gone now anyway, I’m pretty sure.” She turned and called, “Aaron! We’re here! Catch up.”
They waited, watching the blond head bob in and out among the trees.
“He’s coming,” she said.
“But where the hell’s Cain?”
“You know how he dawdles. And stop using that word.”
“Are we on an adventure?” Aaron asked, taking his mother’s hand. He looked around. “What is all this, out here? Which way do we go?”
“See?” Adam said. “See what we’re in for?”
“This way,” Eve said, pointing. It was always up to her to do everything! “This is the way we have decided.”
“But Cain. . . .” Adam said.
Eve sighed. How could twins be so different? “Aaron, where’s Cain? Weren’t you two just playing together?” She had to take Aaron’s arm and turn him around to face her. “Weren’t you? I mean, who else is there to play with?”
Aaron looked in the direction of Eden, sensing correctly that he was being blamed. He’d told Cain to follow him; Cain never listened. “I don’t’ know,” he said. “I’m not his keeper.”
“’’Keeper?’ Where’d you learn such a word?” his mother asked.
“It’s what Cain always says. About me.”