Chapter 9: On His Arm

Saturday night I wore emerald green and the gray wool coat over it.

"That coat doesn't go with that dress," Eli said from the other side of the car.

"It's the only coat I trust."

He looked at the worn collar for a moment.

Then he looked out the window, and I let it go.

The driver took us down Beacon Street in the dark. Snow had started, thin and dry.

Eli wore black, with no tie and no medals.

He had not said a word about the baby since the clinic.

He hadn't asked how I felt. He hadn't told me to sit down.

He had put a bottle of ginger tea in the car door.

"You're thinking too loudly," he said.

"I'm thinking about what happens when we walk in."

"Whatever Porter has planned, he'll announce it from a stage."

"We'll be in the room. That's all we need to be."

"And what will I be?"

"A woman who came to her own award, on her own terms."

His voice was low and level.

I turned and found him closer than I had thought.

"Your collar," he said.

"What about it?"

"It's folded under on one side."

He reached out before I could answer.

His fingertips touched the skin below my ear and turned the collar flat.

It took one second.

I felt it down my spine.

I caught his wrist without thinking about it.

His pulse was going hard against my fingers.

It was much faster than a man's pulse should be, sitting calmly in a car.

He was a patient who had only just recovered, I told myself. A man with a history like that probably ran fast.

He did not pull his hand back.

"Term one," I said. "In private you won't touch me."

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