Chapter 14: Rule One

We were out in the parking lot before I let go of his hand.

I hadn't meant to hold it that long.

Daniel looked at our fingers, then at me, and I watched him decide not to say anything.

He drove me back toward Winnie's.

Winnie's Buick was still on Orchard Street, and I told him I would get it in the morning.

The heater ticked.

Neither of us spoke until the second red light.

"Rule one, Mrs. Pierce," he said.

I turned my head.

He was looking straight ahead, and the corner of his mouth was doing something it hadn't done in a week.

"No touching," he said. "I believe you set it yourself."

"I held your hand for six minutes."

"You timed it?"

"The clock over the microwave timed it." I folded my arms. "You were shaking, and I was being decent."

"Of course."

"Don't smile at me."

"I'm not."

"You are, with your ears."

He laughed, once, and then the laugh went out of him.

The light turned green, and he didn't move until the car behind us honked.

"Laura, I have to tell you the thing I couldn't tell you in front of Winnie's table."

"The nursery chair."

"Yes."

He pulled to the curb a block from Winnie's house and turned off the engine.

The streetlight outside the window was already on, though it was only four.

"You asked why I slept in that chair for a month," he said. "You thought I couldn't stand to touch you."

"I thought it was my body."

"It was never your body."

His hands were on the wheel at ten and two.

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