A touch of wistfulness entered his expression. “Do you think . . . before you go . . . you could sing me the last verse?” He rubbed his neck, sheepish once more. “If you feel like it.”

As if I’d ever had a choice.

“Their babe they named Abe,” I sang on a watery chuckle, “his brother Green Gabe. Then Belle and Adele and Keen Kate. Soon dozens came mewling, but still they kept screwing, even outside the pearly gates.”

His face burned so vivid a scarlet it rivaled my every memory, but he grinned from ear to ear regardless. “That’s indecent.”

“Of course it is,” I whispered. “It’s a pub song.”

His eyes shone too brightly now, brimming with tears of his own. Still he grinned. “You’ve been to a pub?” When I nodded, smiling so hard it hurt, my chest aching and aching and aching, he shook his head in horror. “But you’re a woman.”

“There’s a whole world outside this church, you know. I could show you, if you wanted.”

His grin faded slowly, and he touched my cheek, bending to brush a kiss across my forehead. “Thank you, Lou. For everything.”

I clutched his wrist desperately as the last of the house darkened, as the tug in my stomach deepened to a burn. The pressure at my shoulders increased, and my ears popped. Shouts penetrated the thick haze of my consciousness, echoing all around as if from underwater. “Where will you go?”

He glanced back to where Coco had sat at our table, shuffling cards and laughing. The wistfulness in his expression returned. “I have one more goodbye to make.”

The burn in my chest became near unbearable. Icy needles pierced my skin. “I love you, Ansel.”

My vision clouded as the waves truly descended, shocking and brutal. Though they pulled me away from him, I’d remember his smile until the day I died. Until the day I saw it again. His fingers slipped from mine, and he drifted backward, a beacon of light in the darkness. “I love you too.”

With a powerful kick of my legs, I surged upward.

Toward fear.

Toward pain.

Toward life.

Another Pattern

Reid

We broke the surface together. Water sluiced from her face, golden and freckled, and her hair, long and brown. She clutched my shirt as she gasped, spluttered, before tipping her face to the sky and grinning. Those clear blue-green eyes met mine, and she finally spoke. “Do you have something in your pocket, Chass, or are you just happy to see me?”

I couldn’t help it. I threw back my own head and laughed.