She got up and straddled him, guided him into her, began rocking her hips. The light was growing brighter outside. He didn’t care. He held her hips and told her about the night they’d walked naked together down the street. How he thought they’d seen her, Alma, from afar, walking along the promenade, and how seeing her had excited him. She smiled at him and moved his hand down her stomach and pressed his thumb to her little bulb. He told her they’d had sex on the neighbor’s lawn, in the bright moonlight, and that part of what had made it so exciting was that she might see them—that she would have seen them, if she’d been walking down the street. That was the wildest thing they’d done, he said.

“We’ll be wilder,” she said.

“We already are,” he said.

It was almost eight in the morning when he returned to Clara’s, but the house was still, and upstairs, Effie was fast asleep. He slipped into the bed beside her. He’d meant everything he’d said to Alma, every promise, but now, away from her, beside his wife, he felt lost and afraid. He saw the sanctuary of Signal Creek Methodist, the white crepe ribbons running down either side of the aisle, the pews filled with people in their finest clothes. Hoke and Maynard looking awkward in their suits. His mother in the front row on his side, beside Uncle Carswall. Reverend Miller smiling at him. He would never be able to face these people again. He could never go home. He couldn’t imagine Alma there. Maybe years and years from now.

He fell asleep.

When he woke, Effie was gone, and it was the middle of the afternoon.

Alma was downstairs on the sofa in her green dress, reading. She beamed at him. “Look who’s alive.”

He was in a fog. A film lay over his eyes. He came down from the landing. “Where is everyone?”

“They took the boat out, per usual.”

He didn’t understand. They’d gone—Effie had gone—without him? “Why didn’t anyone wake me up?”

“They tried. And then Effie said you’d been having a terrible case of insomnia or something.” She laughed. “She said maybe it was a good idea to let you sleep.”

“But…” He was still confused. Effie—with Max and Clara—had gone without him. He would never have gone anywhere without her.

“You look adorable right now, do you know that?” Alma stood up and came to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Why aren’t you with them?”

“I didn’t feel like going out. I mean, enough with the boat.”

“You love the boat.”

“I love you more.”

He smiled at her, slipped his arms around her waist. They were alone—he understood now—these were stolen hours.