"How? Your boys gone you don't know where. One girl dead, the other won't leave the yard. Howdid it work?""They ain't at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain't got em.""Maybe there's worse.""It ain't my job to know what's worse. It's my job to know what is and to keep them away fromwhat I know is terrible. I did that.""What you did was wrong, Sethe.""I should have gone on back there? Taken my babies back there?""There could have been a way. Some other way.""What way?""You got two feet, Sethe, not four," he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them;trackless and quiet.
Later he would wonder what made him say it. The calves of his youth? or the conviction that hewas being observed through the ceiling? How fast he had moved from his shame to hers. From his cold-house secret straight to her too-thick love. Meanwhile the forest was locking the distancebetween them, giving it shape and heft. He did not put his hat on right away. First he fingered it, deciding how his going would be, how tomake it an exit not an escape. And it was very important not to leave without looking. He stood up,turned and looked up the white stairs. She was there all right. Standing straight as a line with herback to him. He didn't rush to the door. He moved slowly and when he got there he opened itbefore asking Sethe to put supper aside for him because he might be a little late getting back. Onlythen did he put on his hat. Sweet, she thought. He must think I can't bear to hear him say it. That after all I have told him andafter telling me how many feet I have, "goodbye" would break me to pieces. Ain't that sweet. "Solong," she murmured from the far side of the trees.