Noah looked embarrassed.
“It isn’t bad.”
“What happens?”
“I don’t know. That one disappears when I wake up.”
“But something stays.”
He glanced toward the window.
“A room.”
“What kind?”
“Warm.”
He closed his eye, searching.
“Wood walls. A green lamp. Someone behind me.”
My pulse kicked hard.
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
“Are you frightened?”
His expression softened slightly.
“No.”
The answer reached too deep.
I kept my face still.
“Anything else?”
“A hand here.”
He touched the back of his neck.
My own hand tingled with memory.
I had stood behind him countless times. In the kitchen while he chopped vegetables. On the dock while he leaned over a stubborn cleat. In our bedroom when he was too tired to speak and wanted only the weight of me close.
The green lamp could have been the antique navigation light hanging beside our apartment stairs.
Or it could have belonged to a dozen places.
I refused to turn it into proof.
“Maybe it will come back more clearly,” I said.
“Maybe.”
His eyelids lowered.
