“No—hold me—” he says when she reaches behind herself to grip the curving rail of the cast-iron headboard in both her hands. He lifts her, inside her still. His body fitting hers, seeming the one thing she has never had to struggle for. She lets go. She brings her arms forward, her long, bare, elegant arms, wrapping them around his neck, his muscled back, and he moves with her across the bed, carrying her, positioning her under himself so that her shoulders are off the edge of the mattress, off the bed; he cradles her head in his hands, supporting her. Holding her hair, loose and long, in his hands. “Do you feel safe…” he whispers, moving inside her. She doesn’t answer, watching him for a time in the dusky teal light, losing herself, his eyes, their deep and soundable sea, on nothing but her. Feeling herself nowhere but floating out beyond the edge of their bed. Their shed clothing, the quilt, the hard floor somewhere far below. Dark wood, blues, greens. Yes, she feels safe. Head and shoulders over a precipice. Her eyes closed.

35. “You’re”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“You’re”

DECEMBER 25, 1962

CHRISTMAS DAY

LONDON

The bells are tolling: Christmas, Christmas! a chance for salvation, an innocent hope. Incandescent as the slender candles on her tiny tree, the blown garlands of Bohemian glass so frail they shatter, a tinkling diminuendo, at a breath. Her mother’s package arriving, miraculously, on Christmas Eve day, brought to the door by the postman, the blessed postman—

The long suffering, the brutal disappointments suddenly paled. Excited as a child, she stayed up into the night confecting Christmas for her children, the bitterness at the frosted windows—well below freezing outside, the lineaments of darkness stark in the cold—no matter, held at bay by the glow of hope, by the tinsel and spice-cake hearts she hung in secret, the silver birds taking flight among the branches. Frieda’s new doll dressed in its ladybug gown, propped before a copy of Make Way for Ducklings. Red ribbons threaded deftly through gingerbread; Nick’s miniature train on its track encircling the tree. The mantel strewn with greenery and foil-wrapped chocolates; a pyramid of leafy tangerines, dishes of ribbon candy and nuts and dates on the coffee table.