Chapter 21: All Four

I told them at supper, with my elbows on my mother's table.

"Tonight," I said. "All four of you. In the front room, by the fire."

Bernard dropped his fork.

Ellis took off his glasses and cleaned them very slowly on his shirt.

David looked at me down the length of the table and said nothing, and his hand closed on his mug.

"Garson," I said. "You asked. I'm saying yes."

"I know," Garson said.

"You told them?"

"I told them I'd asked." He shrugged. "Bernard took it better than I expected."

"I'm sitting very calmly," Bernard said. "I'm calmer than I've ever been."

His ears were red.

By nine the fire was built up high, and the quilts from every bed in the cabin were piled on the rug in front of it.

I stood in the middle of the room in my mother's cardigan and nothing else.

They stood in a half circle, in jeans and shirts, and for once none of them seemed to know what to do with their hands.

"Rules," Ellis said, and then caught himself and laughed. "Sorry. Habit."

"I've got one rule," I said. "I say it out loud, and so do you. I'm touching you. I'm awake. My eyes are open."

"Say it back," David said, low.

"That's all of it."

I walked to him first.

I put my hand flat on his chest and looked up.

"I'm touching you. I'm awake. My eyes are open."

"Yours," he said.

I kissed him.

It was slow and deep, and his hand slid up the back of my neck, and when I turned my head he was already looking at the others.

"Bernard," I said.

He came forward, grinning and shaking his head, and kissed me on the corner of my mouth, then the cheek, then the throat.

"Hi, kid," he said into my skin.

"Hi."

"I've never been this nervous in my life."

"You're fine."

"I know I'm fine. I just wanted somebody to hear me say it."

I laughed, and he took the laugh with his mouth, and for a minute it was only the two of us.

Then Ellis's hands were on my shoulders, easing the cardigan down my arms.

He folded it over the arm of the couch.

"Careful with it," I said.

"Always."

Garson stayed by the fire with his back against the mantel.

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