Home Song (40 page)

When their bodies were linked, and his eyelids no longer trembling, but open, and his insecurities no longer present, but put to rout, she moved above him, the aggressor, the seeker, the claimer of the disclaimed.

“I missed this,” she said, her voice rich with passion, her motion insistent and unbroken. He closed his eyes and let his lips fall open and his fingers be webbed by hers, and his hand be pinned against the bedding.

Soon a sound issued from his throat, and his body rose one last time, as if lifted by a breaker, and shuddered within her, and his fingers folded hard upon her knuckles.

He spoke her name softly—“Claire”—and she knew she'd
been forgiven. And later, he rolled her free and took her down pathways traveled many times, in their young, struggling innocence and ignorance, and their older enlightenment and certainty—pathways leading Claire to a cry, and an arching, and a following stillness, repletion for them both.

Afterward, they sighed in unison: amens at the end of a prayer. They basked in the familiarity of lazy limbs that no longer clung but lay useless, flung, slung wherever chance had landed them. Eyes closed, they lay with their breath falling softly against each other's faces.

Her hand happened to be near his hair. She plucked at it a time or two, drawing it through her fingers as if knotting a thread.

Opening her eyes, she murmured, “It's so good to be here, to have it over with, to have you back.”

He opened his eyes too. “I never want to go through anything like that again.”

“You won't. We'll talk about everything from now on, no matter what it is that bothers us. I promise.”

They lay side by side, studying each other, quiet, content.

“Someday,” she said, “when we're very old, do you think we'll be able to look back at this time and laugh at our foolishness?”

He thought for a moment before answering. “No, I don't think so. What we've been through wasn't foolish. It hurt us both. There's even a chance that the hurt will never go away entirely, and we might carry a little bit of it with us forever. But if we do, it'll remind us of how close we came to losing each other and never to make the same mistakes again.”

“I won't. I promise.”

“I won't either.”

They began growing drowsy. Outside, down the block,
somebody's dog barked, so muted it could scarcely be heard through the walls. Out on Eagle Lake two old men set up their checkerboard and prepared for a long night of insulting one another. Somewhere across town a girl and boy rang the doorbell of their half brother and, when he answered, exclaimed, “It worked!” And when his mother appeared at his shoulder, “Thanks, Ms. Arens! Thanks a lot!”

On the conjugal bed, Tom's limbs gave a sudden jerk as he courted sleep.

Claire's eyes drifted open. “Honey?” she murmured.

“Hm?” His eyes remained closed.

“You aren't going to believe this, but I really liked Monica. She's a terrific woman.”

Tom's eyes opened.

Claire's closed.

But her lips held the faintest smile.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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