‘Just that Diane lost a child. Your child. That’s all I needed to know.’

‘There’s more. I don’t think the Labor Day murders were what everyone believed they were. Diane paid—’

Lala put a finger on his lips. She shook her head. ‘Not now. Tomorrow, but not now. You have to let yourself grieve. Give yourself one night.’

‘I never thought something like this would hit me so hard,’ Cab admitted. He tried to smile and make a joke. ‘Me as a father? It’s a horrifying thought.’

‘You do yourself a disservice to talk like that,’ Lala said. ‘I mean it, Cab. I don’t want to hear that from you.’

He realized that he couldn’t escape her seriousness. Nothing he did or said would make the situation less tragic. She could accept that reality, and he couldn’t. She was the Mass-every-Sunday Catholic. She was the branch on a sprawling Cuban family tree. She had a community, and he had nothing except his mother, who was a loner like him. To Lala, loss like this was a part of life you faced and accepted, because more loss was always on the way. To him, it moved the earth.

He took her, and he held her.

She knew he needed her. She could feel his arousal blooming out of his grief. He touched her golden face, and her skin felt hot. Her black hair was wet and in disarray, and the messiness of it made him want to touch it and run his fingers through it, which he did. She took two steps backward and took the fringe of her black Door County tank top in her hands. He’d bought it for her months earlier; he was pleased that she was wearing it. She peeled it up her taut stomach and pulled it over her head, baring her full breasts for him. His hands were on her.

They came together, kissing. The time apart, the distance, the arguments, melted away. He knelt in front of her and removed the rest of her clothes. He kissed her stomach, kissed up her body to her face. Her fingers, with sharp nails, pushed his shorts down. They were naked; they were pressed together. It was the Fourth of July, and fireworks lit up their eyes. He had never needed a woman so much.

She led him to the bedroom. They lay facing each other, touching, but then she pulled him on top of her. Her knees bent, and her legs separated. He was trapped between her thighs; he was inside her. Everything else in the world finally fled his mind, and the only things left were her skin, breath, and wetness.

The storm raging outside sounded distant and unimportant, nothing but a summer rain.

*

Cab awoke two hours later. It was a short night, but he felt as if he’d slept forever.