Chapter 18: The Night Before

We spread the nineteen photographs across my floor that night, in order.

Graham sat cross-legged among them and did not say a word for a long time.

April, the rooftop bar, silver dress. June, a wine bar, her head on a stranger's shoulder, laughing.

Last winter, the night of the spider, she was on a dance floor.

Her hair was up and both arms were in the air.

"Her left hip," he said at last. "She told me it was her left hip, and I drove forty minutes."

"I know."

"I carried her coat up three flights."

"I know."

He picked up the June photograph and looked at it a long time.

Then he set it face down on the pile.

"I'm not going to say I'm sorry again," he said. "You've had enough of it."

"I have."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Be at the Drake tomorrow. Stay where I tell you. Don't go to her, whatever happens."

"Whatever happens."

"Even if it's real."

He looked at me.

"I've seen a lot of people in pain," he said.

"Her face doesn't look like theirs. I never let myself notice."

He stood, collected the photographs, and stacked them square on my table.

Then he took his phone from his pocket, dropped it in the paper bag, and set the bag on the sill.

"Rule two," I said. "No cancelling."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"The couch is by the door."

"I'll take the couch."

He stood in the middle of my one room, in the lamplight, with his sleeves pushed up.

His hands were empty.

"Not the couch," I said.

He crossed the floor in three steps, and he did not take me in his arms the way I expected.

He knelt.

He lifted the hem of my sweater and kissed my stomach, just under the ribs, once, and looked up.

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