Chapter 22: Nothing Hanging

Three nights later nobody was counting anything.

I came off a shift at six with road salt on my boots and a thermos of Dewey's coffee still in my hand.

The house on Park Point smelled like lemon and toast.

Emlyn was at the kitchen counter in his cream sweater, buttering bread, with the sleeves pushed up and his hair in his eyes.

"Good evening," he said. "I have made you toast."

"You made me toast."

"Four pieces. I wasn't sure of your appetite."

"You've seen my appetite."

He went pink to the ears.

I put down the thermos and stood in the doorway, smiling at him.

There was nothing hanging over us.

No summons on the mat, no black car at the bottom of the street, no calendar with a date circled in red.

The house was ours, and the whole night was ours, and I didn't have to be anywhere.

"I'd like a bath," I said. "A long one."

"I'll run it."

"And I'd like you to wash my back."

"Anything."

I took his hand and led him up the stairs.

His bathroom was bigger than my kitchen in Lincoln Park.

It had a claw-foot tub, black-and-white tile and a mirror over the sink as wide as a door.

I'd never really looked at it.

I stood in front of it with my boots off, and I looked at him, standing behind me.

There he was.

A slim man with sandy hair and round glasses and freckles, looking out of the glass over my shoulder like anybody else.

"You have a reflection," I said.

"I do."

"I've been meaning to say how much I like it."

"It isn't mine to take credit for." But he was grinning. "The old stories were wrong about that."

I took my sweater off over my head, and the mirror showed me.

The big arms, the full breasts, the soft belly, the thick thighs, the silver hair coming down out of its crown.

I looked at myself for a long time.

"I look good," I said.

"You look," he said, "like a woman who has been told many lies about herself, and has never believed them."

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