Assumptions

ASSUMPTIONS
WHEN MOLLY LEARNED that her brother had met the Man Who Loves Provo, she knew immediately that she too should have the experience. She even had a question of her own already formed; it had nothing to do with rainbows--or with mirrors. It was instead, she felt, more rhetorical than interrogative.
Columbus, ever the mindful brother, helped her as best he could: he told her exactly where they had met, and the time, and all of the other details: his description, right to a tee: the clothes he wore, the height he had; his weight; and all of the other important physical characteristics that would help her to make the identification: the hairline, the leathery skin, the sweat glands; the tonal quality in his voice.
Lulu, overhearing the conversation, interrupted: "Don’t count on it," she said. "You never see the Man when you’re looking for him." She paused and looked at each of her children, aging and maturing with a grace she wished she still had. "He comes to you."
"But that’s not true," Columbus insisted. "I tracked him down. He walked right past me. And I turned and had to catch up with him, and then I asked him if the mirror was colorless."
"But," Lulu returned, "he passed you." She looked hard at her son, then to her daughter, raised an eyebrow. "Am I right?"
Molly, for her own part, would not be swayed; she began her search in earnest. For weeks, for months, for a year, she walked the streets of Provo, looking for the Man Who Loves Provo. And as she walked, she practiced her question. She perfected her question. But as she practiced her perfection, she began to tire of her question. And as she tired of her question, she discarded her question. And formulated another. Until she had grown tired of that one too. And then replaced it.
On and on it went, the constant replacing. For weeks, for months, for a year.
Of course, the predictable happened: Molly tired not only of the questions, but of her search for the Man Who Loves Provo. She grew tired of walking the streets, looking for something that wasn’t even there.
And then the next predictable thing occurred: Once she had stopped looking for the Man Who Loves Provo, he appeared. He was in his usual way, walking and mumbling, scuffling his feet along the pavement.
Molly, of course, had forgotten her questions, but she approached him nonetheless.
He sensed her approach and stopped. They stared.
Molly, numb and now looking for the first time at this Man Who Loves Provo, recognized by sight the thing that, until now, she had only heard of by sound. Though he was not agitated--as she had so often been told--or panting, or breathing hard--as she had so often been warned--he was, instead, calm. On the surface. But the familiar, well-known trail of sweat slowly began to form at the hairline, and then slide down across his forehead, finding the creases of his face and making a way down to his chin, in obedience to gravity and to natural law.
Suddenly, almost in a panic--but not quite in a panic--Molly blurted out, not one, but two questions, nearly identical to the other: "Why do you love Provo?" she asked. Pause. "How can you love Provo?"
The Man Who Loves Provo, never alarmed at the surprises that seemed to always come his way, replied with nary a waver: "I’d be careful about making too many assumptions."