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Darius smiled, his teeth large, white, lined up perfectly like soldiers. He stood, moved to the porch steps, and held out a hand. Miranda came forward and took it.

Soft,
she thought.
So much smaller and softer than I thought it would be.

“So what exactly is it that you’re doing out there?” Dix asked.

Miranda had been humming as she chopped onions. She stopped when he asked this question. He was surprised at how relieved he was. He hadn’t realized how much her incessant background noise had been annoying him, a fly banging against a window, trying to get out.

“You sound skeptical,” Miranda said in a breezy voice that was new to her. Laughter seemed on the tip of her tongue.

Dix was grateful to hear the lightness in her tone. This was something that had changed, for the better, since she’d been spending her afternoons at the farmhouse.

Or was it more than her afternoons? Was it all day? He didn’t really know. She didn’t really say.

She was home when he left in the morning and when he returned. Most of the time. He knew that when he drove back into the driveway in the early evenings and her car was absent, he was disappointed. Irked. He hated to admit that last part. She had started to smile more, even as she had become more vague and evasive about how she spent her days. He was relieved that she had found something that made her happy, but it was true, he was skeptical. Which she didn’t seem to mind. Which made him more skeptical.

“I’m not questioning you. I’m just interested,” he said, touching her back, trying to mean what he said. “Just curious.”

She was already firmer and more muscled than she used to be. That told him something. Her appetite had increased, too. At dinner, she ate almost as much as he did. And her appetite for him had increased as well. That was a change that he didn’t mind but still found unsettling.

“Curiosity,” Miranda said, whacking him gently with the back of a wooden spoon, dodging his query. “We all know what that did to the cat!”

Dix leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Seriously, Miranda,” he said, his voice now reflecting his words, “what goes on out there?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Seriously, Dix,” she said, lightly mocking his change in tone, “nothing you need to worry about.”

“I’m not worried,” he said, although her cagey avoidance of his question was making him that way. “Just wondering why it’s all such a big secret.”

“Because it’s sacred, that’s why,” she said.

Dix scoffed. He thought she was making a joke. She wasn’t.

“It
is
sacred, Dix,” she insisted. “And it’s personal and private. Besides, you know how people can be. How people are. How they talk and make everything mean and ugly, even when it isn’t. Especially when it isn’t.”

“I’m not ‘people,’ Miranda,” Dix said. For the first time since they’d been together, he wished he could say, “I’m your husband,” and exert some kind of relational influence over her. Instead he said, “I care about you, Miranda. If something is this important to you, I’d like to know more about it.”

“And you want to know if the crap you’re hearing in town is true, right? Don’t deny it, Dix,” she sniped back at him.

“Sure, of course, I want to hear things from you, not just idle gossip. Jeez, Miranda, you make it seem like I’m not on your side.”

“There are no sides, Dix.”

Dix fought the urge to shake his head.

Where did she learn this maddening and oblique way of talking?
he wondered.
She used to be so straightforward.

“I don’t think there are sides, either,” he said. “That’s why I can’t understand why you’re so evasive about that place. Remember, I was the one who said I supported his efforts. Before you even went out there, I defended him. But if you act like you have something to hide, people get suspicious. It’s only natural.”

“We don’t have something to hide, Dix,” Miranda said. “We have something to protect.”

She stirred her onions. She sliced some tofu. She was giving up meat. They were increasingly eating different dinners, together. She was still cooking for him but using only specially designated pans for what she had begun referring to as “flesh.” Dix sighed and rubbed his cheeks. He watched her flick her eyes at him. She seemed to be assessing or testing him. As if she wanted to see how far she could push him. He’d always indulged her. He realized that. Maybe it was time to set some boundaries. To stick up for himself more. He’d never had to do that. He wasn’t sure how. He felt frustration building, a pressure in his head and chest. He sighed again. Shuffled his feet. Refused to look at her. These small expressions of exasperation seemed to have an effect.

“OK,” she finally said. “I’ll share. A lot of what we do is just simple work. Taking care of the animals. Repairing the house and barn. Of course, in the spring, there will be gardening. Right now, we’re planning. Building a cold frame. Thinking about a small greenhouse. The inherent value of hard work is part of what we’re trying to teach these kids.” She sprinkled tamari over her tofu cubes. “Sometimes we just talk. Try to get them to open up about what their lives were like, what they could be like.”

“Who’s we?”

“What do you mean?”

“Other than you and Darius, who else is out there? How many kids, how many adults?”

“Quite the inquisition.”

“Just a conversation.”

“Right. Well. The number changes. The mix changes. We have just a couple of kids right now. There are four other women besides me. One has a teenage daughter. They all live there full-time. And Darius. And Sally. But she’s not really part of our program. She just rents a room there, I guess. She’s like Darius’s cousin or something. I don’t know. That’s what he said. We’re supposed to just leave her alone. Anyway, the rest of us do everything together.”

“Women, children, and Darius. You can see how folks might get the wrong idea,” Dix said.

“Women and children are vulnerable in our society. They are the ones most in need of sanctuary,” Miranda said. “And sanctuary is what we provide. Sanctuary and healing.”

Dix winced. That was not her voice. Those were not her words. She was channeling someone else, repeating phrases and ideas given to her. She had never been given to this kind of psychobabble. “And how does Darius provide ‘sanctuary’?” Dix asked, trying not to allow his tone to become exasperated.

“He does many things. He leads us in spiritual exercises. Things like meditation. Focused breathing. Becoming more conscious of our energy flows. Looking for energy blockages. He guides us, teaches us the truths he’s learned through his extensive studies.”

“That all sounds perfectly groovy,” Dix said. “What about, you know, school for the kids?”

“We are homeschooling. Traditional education is tied into the dominant hierarchy, and we’re trying to create a different path for people, a different way to be in the world. Darius provides us with a place to step away from the material concerns of our consumer culture so we can recapture and reconnect to natural abundance. This is the core of what The Source is all about.”

“The Source?”

Dix was accustomed to seeing the occasional back-to-nature, tie-dye-clad hippie around town. Had seen flyers for various spiritual retreats that promised everything from “rebirthing” and cures for illness to simple peace of mind and happiness. But this was different. What Miranda was describing was more of a commune. Dix was starting to think that the gossip and suspicion he had heard grumbling around town was more accurate than he’d originally allowed. He was starting to think he’d given this guy far too much benefit of the doubt. He began to worry he was taking advantage of people. And especially of Miranda’s naïveté.

“Yes, that’s what our sanctuary is called,” Miranda said.

“Does he ask for money? How is this place supported?”

“We sell crafts and goods at the farmers’ market and at shops.”

We. She’d never sold anything at the market, but she was already claiming kinship with things they did before she had even joined them. Now she was part of a “we” that was not their “we,” the “we” of Dix and Miranda.

“That can’t bring in enough to support that many people,” he said.

“We live simply. We grow much of what we eat.”

“Still.”

Miranda cleared her throat. She tossed the tofu into the pan, where it sizzled almost like real meat. “People are encouraged to give as they can. What they can.”

Dix held his breath.

“Sometimes this might be a particular skill. Other times it might be money, yes. To go toward programs and upkeep,” she explained with a practiced casualness.

“But he owns the property. He gets the advantage of the upkeep, the improvements,” Dix said.

“Gifts, Dix. We each give what we can, what we choose to, what comes naturally to us, without expectation of return. That’s what a gift is. The reward is in the giving itself, not in the expectation that you will get something by giving something.”

Dix wondered how much she’d given Darius. She had far less than people thought she did. She was not savvy about financial matters. She’d never had a reason to be. Until the house of cards her father built had crashed down. But even that hit she had felt emotionally, without it really registering financially. He recognized that this was partially his fault. He’d taken care of her. She had no real expenses. She had perhaps stepped too quickly from her father’s home to his. He would not ask her if she’d given Darius money or how much. Her money was hers to do with what she liked. He also sensed that any discussion on that topic would lead to an argument. Neither of them had the temperament for arguments. More than anything, he was worried about her drifting away from him, from them as a couple, and felt a misstep on his part would send her even farther out into Darius’s sea.

“Dix?”

Miranda’s voice was tentative and serious, now more her own, the voice that was familiar to him. It drew him out of his private worries.

“Do you want to come out sometime with me? See what it’s all about?” she asked.

Dix felt a stubborn resistance rise inside him.

“You could see how lovely it all truly is. You could meet Darius, the kids.”

“Would I be welcome?” he asked.

“Of course!” she said, turning to look at him, her broad mouth breaking into an inviting smile.

Dix felt himself soften toward her.

“Besides,” she said, going back to the stove, her voice now dropped into a more pragmatic pitch. “Frankly, we could use your expertise. You could give us some advice. We’re trying to convert a school bus into a bunkhouse. So we can house more kids. Maybe you’d have some ideas. You’re so good at that stuff.”

Dix stiffened again. He had no interest in gifting his skills or counsel to Darius’s operation. He suspected they’d want him to gift materials and labor, too. He resisted the unwelcome thought that now Miranda, through Darius, was using him. Or trying to. Maybe it was just Darius using her to get to him, manipulating her and taking advantage of her good nature, gullibility, generosity.

“More kids, Miranda?” he asked, avoiding responding to her invitation. “Are there any real social workers out there? Does this guy have any supervision, accreditation? He seems to be a doctor practicing without a license.”

Miranda stared at him with an expression he had not seen before. She was suddenly cold, hard, and walled off. “I refuse to be brought down by your negativity,” she said sharply. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you all this. I knew you wouldn’t get it.”

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” Dix said. He was sorry, it seemed now—for so many things.

“This is the most important thing I’ve done,” she went on, scraping the stir-fry onto two plates. “I know it has value. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not real. It is real. It’s good. It’s right. It makes me happy. It helps people. I know it does.”

He stepped to her and twined his fingers in her hair. She twisted her neck away from him. He rubbed her cheek with the back of his hand. She pulled away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“So am I,” she said. Her tone made it clear she was sorry for him, not herself. But she let him wrap his arms around her shoulders, rest his cheek on the top of her head.

“I miss you,” he whispered.

He wanted to tell her that he missed her not because she was gone so much, but he missed the her he’d once known. He missed the Miranda he’d watched blossom into a tentative young woman, the adult Miranda who wandered somewhat aimlessly in search of herself. He missed her softness and wide-eyed wonder. He tried tightening his embrace, hoping to find and release that internal gentleness that had been so abundant in her. Miranda held herself apart in his arms, stiff and unyielding. Dix also missed that, once upon a time, he’d been the source of her happiness. That their life together had been.

She did not give in to his embrace, so he let her go.