She’s coming down the stairs as I’m going up. She’s wearing a thin shirt. My left hand brushes her left hand. She turns around and takes my hand in hers. Between her thumb and four fingers I place my four fingers. Between my thumb and four fingers her four fingers are placed and we slowly walk up the stairs. Not for a moment longer can I bear not to be inside her.
Related Quotes
I missed so much, running to get to the top of the mountain, that instead of sitting down to take in the view, I fretted over conquering the next one. I was a working-class Brixton girl figuring out which fork to use in the Palace, and everything was brand new. I’d say to her, yes, be concerned for the future, but don’t forget to find the joy in the present.
She grew larger. From within, Bird thrummed against her: his heels the mallets, her belly the drum. She could feel his hiccups, a microscopic ping. When he turned over, she felt the movement inside her stillness. What’s it feel like, Ethan asked, wondrous, and she tried to explain: what the ocean floor felt as the waves rolled out, then in. The librarian slid another book across the counter toward her as she ventured farther and farther from shore.
She stands up from the sofa perhaps to go get a glass of water from the kitchen and at just that moment I enter the living room. I walk up to her and bring my face close to hers. Our arms hang at our sides. Love is stunned into silence. She runs her hand along the scar on my forearm. I rest my right cheek on her right cheek. Our faces are the same warm temperature and I remain there for almost a full minute. We remain there, standing with our cheeks touching, in contact but without pressure.
In the darkness our guests will begin arriving, boots off at the door, coats on the bed in my study upstairs. For a brief moment each guest is in the silence of a room in someone else’s home, divesting themselves of unneeded warmth. They can hear music from unseen speakers: Gladys Knight’s “Since I Fell for You.” Their eyes rest on my botanical drawings and on the framed photograph of John Coltrane. Then they come down into the hubbub.
She places her hand on my fist. Her hand covers my fist. I let my hand fall open. She moves her hand down and crosses her wrist against mine and now I’m almost asleep. When and where were you happiest? My one remaining contact with wakefulness is the flat inside of her wrist resting on the flat inside of mine, as though each wrist were seeking the other’s pulse. I listen for the soft beat of blood through the skin. I listen as best as I can in the dimming stillness. I slow my breathing and soon I hear nothing.