Chapter 21: The Second Bar

Elora's POV

He sat down beside me on the bench, and the wood creaked.

For a month I had thought about this moment in the dark, and never once did I picture it with the lid open and the dust on the keys.

"Put your hand here," I said.

I set his right hand on the keys with his fingers curved.

He tapped the first bar, soft and careful.

He tapped the second bar, and it was wrong.

It was wrong in exactly the same place it had been every night of our marriage.

I laughed before I could stop it.

"It's the fourth note," I told him. "You rush it. The fourth note waits."

"It waits," he repeated.

"Like this."

I laid my left hand over his, and my fingers pressed his fingers down.

His skin was warm, and I felt the pulse in his wrist against my palm.

I played the second bar with his hand under mine, slow, and let the fourth note hang in the room.

"Again," I said.

We played it again.

His thumb moved under mine, and I felt him breathe out.

We did not play the third bar.

I turned my head, and he was looking at me, not at the keys.

His eyes were wet and green, and his mouth was a few inches from mine.

I had written a rule on a whiteboard that said his hands were mine to give, and I had meant it.

"This is not forgiveness," I said.

"I know."

"I mean it, Ansel. You said Good. I will hear that word for the rest of my life. Rule three still stands, and I'll say when."

"I know," he said again, rough. "I'll wait."

"I'm saying when."

He stopped breathing.

"My doctor cleared me on Tuesday," I said. "I didn't tell you, because I wanted to decide it myself. I'm deciding it. Kiss me."

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