Page 104 of Under Story

Eli drives at a crawl. They reach the apartment as the sun sets. Brass light showers the front porch. The nurse recommended that Silas sleep in a bottom bunk: the railings will keep him safe. As they bring him upstairs, he fusses, but he settles down quickly in bed.

Laurel puts her ear to his chest. His heartbeat is the world’s most beautiful sound. Eli stands over them, beaming, and she flashes to their early days—the way he looked at her when he arrived at her attic apartment.

She strokes Silas’s hair. “I don’t know if I can leave him.”

“I know,” says Eli gently. “But he needs rest. And so do we.”

“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” Laurel asks. “I’m afraid I’ll wake him if I shower here.”

“Not at all,” says Eli. “I’ll install the monitor.”

Laurel floats down the hall. She enters Eli’s room, passing the bed, and walks through the adjoining door. As soon as it shuts, she shucks her swimsuit off. Hot water hasn’t felt so good since Antarctica. Laurel rolls her head, soaps every crevice, combs conditioner through with her fingers. A breeze comes through the window while she pulls on her shorts and tank top.

She walks back into the bedroom. Eli isn’t there. Laurel sits on the edge of the queen to wrap her hair in a towel. When they were married, she always made the bed, and she notices his effort here, the duvet rumpled but tucked under the pillows. A notebook sits on the nightstand beside a bottle of sleeping pills.

The door to the bedroom is open, but Eli still knocks.

“Come in,” Laurel says. Then: “Sorry,” she adds, standing, when he sees her on the bed.

Eli waves her down.

“Sit,” he says. “We’re both exhausted.” He sets the monitor’s receiver on the dresser beside the box it came in. On the cover, an elderly newborn sleeps peacefully. “All set.”

She thinks of how unflappable he was in the water, how steady he was on the beach. What pressure he must have felt as he put his mouth to Silas’s and breathed.

“You were incredible today,” she says.

“So were you,” says Eli. “I’ve never seen someone run so fast through sand.”

She adjusts the towel on her head—unwinds and holds it there, squeezing, before she sets it on the bed.

“Well,” she says, “I’ll get out of your way.”

“You aren’t in it,” says Eli.

He won’t quite look at her. Laurel becomes aware of her bare skin. And of her pulse, beneath it.

“About what you said this morning,” Eli says. “You were wrong. I wasn’t relieved that you were gone.”

Laurel’s mind splits and rearranges itself around this sentence. Does he mean what she thinks he does? The question is an electric fence: they can go no further without touching it.

Then Eli comes toward her—long strides, before he can stop himself. He answers her question by placing his hands on her face, his mouth on her mouth.

For a moment, she feels only shock. Then sensation floods back to her. Laurel does not think. She moves. She kisses the lips she’s kissed a thousand times, a long-ago feeling now new.

In Eli’s face is total willingness, permission for her to do anything. She pulls her shirt over her head. Eli is still wearing his swimsuit, and the fabric clings as she unties the waistband. He peels her shorts down with one hand. When she lowers over him, he shudders. Neither talks. They keep close to the moment, as if it will only happen this once. Laurel braces herself on her elbows, controlling the speed, remembering the way he used to like it. Eli exhales sharply. His eyes are open, his mouth parted. As he comes, he arcs his back, and his stomach presses against hers.

He turns her onto her back and brings his face to her hips. Everything in Laurel is tensed: all it would take is the slightest touch, and she grasps his head, holding him back, not wanting it yet.

It’s too late. Blood pulses to its single destination. She could try to postpone the end—the little death—forever. Instead, she takes her foot off the brake, leaning into the wild careen of it: everything and then nothing but embers. Eli lifts his head to look at her. Without speaking she asks, Have I done enough?, and without speaking he answers.

13

Sparks

Laurel carries a bottle downstairs. The stairs creak beneath her, and a cry sounds on cue. She tests the formula with a finger, to make sure it isn’t too hot, and enters the mundane paradise of Silas’s room.

It is weightless, perfect June. Light from a sun-catcher spangles the wall. Laurel can smell the honeysuckle and the dogwood in the yard. She turns off the sound machine, a hand-me-down from Beth. Silas lies on his back, but at the sound of her voice, he lifts his head.