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people think of me as somebody’s somebody, I even catch myself thinking of myself like that, and I don’t like it. And here’s something that maybe does have to do with you. I’m tired of defining myself in terms of my relationships with men. I think we women do that all the time and I don’t think that you men do it at all, or at least not very much. Do you think of yourself as my boyfriend?”
    â€œSounds good to me.”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou think of me as your girlfriend, don’t you.”
    â€œWhen I’m feeling lucky.”
    â€œThere. You see? I’m tired of that. I’m going away to think about that. All of those things. The one conference is about work and the other one is about everything else.”
    â€œI don’t have any chain around your neck,” I said. “I don’t make you do anything you don’t want to do . . .”
    â€œYou are bitter.”
    â€œI want you to be free,” I said. “I want you to be free and to choose to come back so I can have you in my life. I want you to choose that out of all the other choices you may have. But I don’t want you to come back and feel that you’ve missed your life and I don’t want you to come back because you feel sorry for me. I don’t like people who feel sorry for me or for themselves and if you ever start feeling that way, I probably won’t hang around. Ifyou choose not to come back, I want you to make that choice with joy, because it’s what you want.”
    We walked on. After a while I noticed that it was dark.
    â€œWe’d better get back,” I said.
    We turned and walked back up the lane toward the lighted windows in John’s house.
    Outside of John’s door, we paused. Zee looked up at me.
    â€œDo you love me?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWill you love me if I go away in August?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBecause I am going to go.”
    â€œI know.”
    She put her head against my chest and I put my hand in her hair and pressed her against me. I could feel my heart beating.
    After a while we went inside to escape the night. John looked at us thoughtfully.
    Long afterward, I wondered if, far away, someone else had been looking out at the same darkness, his soul cold, his feelings twisted, forming the plan which would, in not too great a time, lead him to stalk me through that curious moral jungle where manhunters seek their prey.

— 4 —
    Three days after John’s supper, I got word about when they were going to open the Edgartown Great Pond. This annual exercise is to insure that salt water gets into the pond so the shellfish there won’t die. The opening through South Beach is dug by heavy equipment and for a while the tides sweep in and out of the pond, allowing the freshwater to escape and the ocean water to run in. After not very long, Nature closes up the opening again, but by that time the shellfish are in good shape for another year. Since I do my oystering in the Great Pond, I have a personal interest in those shellfish. Moreover, while the opening is open, it is a popular place for fishing, since both bass and bluefish are attracted by the bait that is carried by the tides in and out of the pond. For reasons which elude me, the exact time of the opening of the pond is not widely publicized, and fishermen play games trying to be among the earliest at the new opening. This year my hot tip turned out to be true, and I was there at dawn when the bass showed up.
    I didn’t normally fish for bass since I don’t hunt for fish I can’t keep, and the minimum keepable length for bass that year was 36 inches, which meant that most of the ones you’d catch you’d end up throwing back. The minimum length rule was in force because for years the bass population had been declining and efforts were being made to bring the fish back. I also didn’t like to keep the bigger