Page 36 of Wrong Mail

He groans. "I know where you are going with this.”

"You don't."

"I mean, I know what it does to you." His thumb moves once against my neck. "You know what Kane advised, Mal. Diving back into this too soon could reverse all the work you've done. I'm not going through those night terrors with you again."

"That isn't the same."

"No," he says. “But your body doesn’t know the difference."

And there's nothing I can say to that because he's right.

His phone rings again in his hand. He looks at it.

“Look, I have to go."

"Okay."

"Lock up behind me."

"I always do."

"And go easy on the wine."

"Yes, Doctor."

He stares at me. "You know I love you, right?"

I nod.

He kisses the top of my head. At the door he stops, and for a second I think he's going to say something else, but he doesn't. He goes out into the heat. The car starts. Gravel cracks under the tires. Then it’s quiet.

I sit at the island in the enormous silence of the house. I look at the phone, the photos still open where I left them.

Then I pull my laptop toward me and I keep going.

The lights dip.

Not out. Just down, a brownout, the lamps going amber and swelling back. The AC coughs and drops into a lower note. The fridge starts up again.

It’s eleven-thirty.

I look up.

The house is dark past the kitchen. I haven't put a light on anywhere else because I've been sitting here for an hour. At the far end of the hall, past the stairs, the plastic sheeting over the renovation wing hangs motionless.

It isn't moving.

I watch it not move for longer than a sane person would.

Then there's a sound.

I don't know where. It's small and low, somewhere under me or behind me. It comes at the exact moment the AC changes note. It arrives on my right. That's the flat, dead, underwater country where I can't tell a door opening from Luna turning in her sleep.

I go completely still.

“David?”

Nothing.