Chapter 18: My Old Bed

My father's house was empty at six in the morning.

He had gone back to the hospital with a clean shirt and a fresh thermos.

He had left a note on the kitchen table: "Eggs in the fridge. Don't wake the cat."

We had no cat.

It was his way of saying he knew exactly who was with me.

Miles stood in the doorway of my childhood bedroom with his hand on the frame.

The single bed was still under the window, with the quilt my father had bought at a church sale when I was nine.

Past the glass, over the dark garden, was the low stone wall.

"Seven years," he said, "and I never came up these stairs."

"You came to the gravel."

"I threw stones at that window every Tuesday."

"You were twenty-three."

"That's not better." He smiled. "Can I come in?"

"Come in, Miles."

He crossed the room and put his hands on either side of my face.

It was the first time he had kissed me without anything hanging over us, no lie, no deadline, no one waiting.

It was slow and long, and I felt it all the way down.

"I love you," he said against my mouth.

"I know. Say it again when I'm naked."

"I'll say it the whole time."

I pulled off his sweater.

He unbuttoned my blouse one button at a time, and each time he opened one he put his lips on the skin he found.

My collarbone.

The slope of my breast.

The soft place under it.

I stood there shaking, with my fingers in his hair.

When the blouse was gone he reached behind me, undid my bra and let it fall.

"Come here," I said, and sat on the edge of the old bed.

He knelt on the floor and took my jeans down my legs and tossed them behind him.

Then he stripped off his own, and I saw how hard he was, the head dark and wet against his stomach.

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