I wondered if Steph had lied to me about her period. I wondered if she didn’t want me to touch her because we were having an affair, and if I made her come, that would mean she really did intend to cheat on Lisa. As long as she didn’t come, maybe that meant she wasn’t entirely cheating.

It’s not that I didn’t want to believe Steph, but in the situation we had created, lies were everywhere.

However, I did want to believe her. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t lie to me, and that I wouldn’t lie to her. I wanted to believe in the specific uniqueness of what had happened between us, its once-in-a-lifetime wonder. With Steph, I felt more pure and free than I’d felt with anyone else before. With Steph, I felt like I was finally being myself.

I sat on the doorstep as the night waned, and the birds began their early morning chorus. When the sky started to brighten, I went inside. I could sleep until Aunt Tammy arrived. Analemma thumped her tail at me as I went through the living room and back to my room. The bed was rumpled, the sheets thrown back. The wet spot had dried slightly. I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up my phone to check the time. It was almost five thirty in the morning, and there was a text from Steph:

XX

Chapter 42

Aunt Tammy arrived a little after eight. When I saw her coming into the house with her suitcase, I was struck by how much she looked like Joan in those photos from the seventies, as if time had somehow folded, but imperfectly, because everyone was in the wrong place.

Dad called to tell us he was flying in that afternoon, and Aunt Tammy designated me to pick him up from the Airporter. She was going back to the hospital that morning, because Joan was being moved to the neuro ICU. Dad and Aunt Tammy agreed that I should walk Analemma and then drive to the hospital by myself later. Within an hour of her arrival, Aunt Tammy had left again.

I took Analemma up to the fire road. I remembered the day I’d hiked up here with Steph. I remembered last night. It seemed inappropriate to think about it now, but she had become a constant desire inside me. To not feel that yearning for her would be stranger than to feel it.

I thought about her while I drove to the hospital. I hadn’t paid much attention to where it was last night, and today I was surprised to see it was just off Sir Francis Drake. I had driven past the road to the hospital, marked by a Catholic school and that big white church, multiple times. I remembered Steph holding my hand as she drove me home.