“There are a thousand things I want to say, a thousand places I’d rather be, but you have to know. We found him, what was left. They’d got him. I don’t know, maybe he was set up, maybe he thought he could, you know, parle, but whatever he was doing, it cost him, us, you. He’s not coming back.” I hung my head. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. I saw, thought I saw, a slight quiver to her lip, like she might cry. She sat there very still, not daring, I think, to move as she mastered herself.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice rising somewhat above a whisper while still possessing a whisper’s airy quality, and whether it’s the rasping of conspirators or the tension in love’s desire, it is a hopelessly intimate timbre.
They say, in first aid, if someone is stabbed by something, you shouldn’t pull it out unless you want them to bleed out. Her voice, her pain—and my sick feeling of desire! What a prick, yet how could I stop my mind. Love’s dart had wounded me long ago, and now, at a hint, not even a hint, a simulacrum, a misinterpretation my lust forced on the situation, the wound was gushing out. Imagination was playing it all out: I would comfort her and she would crawl into my arms and weep. We’d name our first child after him. I could not stop these thoughts. So, I rose.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I—I—I—”
Her hand, soft, tender, white, a perfect hand, caught my wrist. With just the tips of her fingers, she forced me back into my seat.
“Larry,” she said, and then the tears did come, my arms did reach out, she did collapse into them. There, sobbing, shaking, I held her, trying not to feel happy in the midst of our sorrow.
Tale Told 