The room glowed. With gentle care, she resumed cutting. Everything transient in the light. Everything fleeting. When she finished, she washed his ears and neck with a fresh warm cloth. She walked him to the mirror to see. Then she saw his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. You did a good job.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, I like it.” He fumbled for words. “I feel lucky. It’s been a long time since I felt that way.”

She regarded him, the freckles in her hazel eyes. Then she nodded. Something unspoken between them. A conversation.

On the carpet, Matty was already asleep. She flicked off the television. The room was quiet.

She took some blankets and a pillow from the closet and made them into a bed on the floor.

“You’re tired,” she said. Her solemn eyes. “Should you lie down?”

He felt exhaustion break over him. It made him dizzy. “I don’t know.”

“I think you should.”

Jack got under the bedcovers. He watched her pick up Matty and tuck him into the makeshift bed. He just kept looking at her. This stillness in him. Did he dream this?

No. He did not.

He closed his eyes. From somewhere in his memory came a single word, from a song, or a prayer, some source he could not place: hallelujah. Seconds passed, a handful, while he lived in that brief space between awareness and sleep, the dark reach of it. Until he could keep it away no longer.

XXV

My sweet Jack: Let me photograph you on this night, in case this is the last time that we’re exactly like we are at this moment. This reckless, fleeting glimpse of wonderland. This rapture of sight and touch and sound. Oh, my heart. The glory here, in this twinkling of minutes.

Let me photograph this one.

He woke in the frail blue dark, listening. Something he’d heard. A soft sound. He waited for his eyes to adjust. She was standing by the window, her shape. The light came from the radio clock. Blue numbers glowing from the nightstand. She pulled her dress over her head and stood there naked, her hair falling down her back. His pulse started to jump, and in the darkness she took one of his shirts and put it on. Then she turned.

He closed his eyes.

Feelings rolling over him. Ocean waves.

Shift of the bed. A rustle of sheets. She was there, getting under the covers. She curled on her side, facing away from him.

She thinks you’re asleep.

So act asleep.

Stay perfectly still.