He was still in the bed, but sitting up more and better.
In other words, he was getting bored.
Tonight, for several rare minutes, he had been alone, while voices and doors
and all the sounds of a full busy household sounded around him.
He watched out his extravagant window as the darkness fell, long and slow,
and the mists gathered off the lake and wandered down from the treetops. Winding,
whirling, dancing.
He thought of the clean living smell, and wished he was out there once more.
“No, you don’t,” a voice said next to his ear and he looked around but no one
was there.
“You aren’t here, go away,” he said crossly.
“Now how can I go away if I’m not here?”
“I don’t know how you’re here when you aren’t here.”
“Temper, temper.”
“Oh shut up!”
His wife looked into the room. “Do you need something? Are you talking
to me?”
“No. Just – just talking, I guess.”
“My silly man,” she said, came in and kissed him on the forehead and
adjusted the covers around him, like he was one of the children.
“Don’t,” he ordered, but then caught her hand before she could retreat.
She waited.
“Do you s’pose, ” he said hesitantly, “that I could sit in the window?”
“With night coming on? Do you think that’s – safe?”
“If it’s not, I have more work to do on the window. Besides, night air being
sick isn’t true.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah. I do.” He turned her hand over and studied it, then rubbed it softly.
They were silent together, then she sighed. “Jesse and Jonny
are still here. I’ll send them in to help you.”
“Alright.”
“You have to let go of her hand,” the voice beside him advised him. “She’ll
stand there all night letting you hold her hand.”
He sighed, and let the hand go free.
