

### Becca's Book

A Fictional Memoir

by

Jeffrey Anderson

Copyright 2013 by Jeffrey Anderson

Smashwords Edition

This story is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Though this e-book is being distributed for free, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reprinted or reproduced without the permission of the author. If you like this book, please encourage your friends to download a copy at Smashwords.

Preface

Zach Sandstrom handwrote the following on a clean sheet of 8½ x 11 paper:

26 February 2012

Dear Becca,

I started writing these scenes after more than three decades not really knowing why I wrote—maybe to try to make sense of it all, maybe to try to unburden my heart, maybe to try to honor what we were granted so long ago. I didn't know why; I still don't.

What I do know is that the scenes flowed forth easily and naturally, as if from some pure spring buried deep and balked but freed now with a spade-full of dirt tossed to one side, the right rock loosed and rolled away.

Nor do I know why I'm sending them to you. Maybe they're meant as gift, some chance at a smile or the warm glow of recollection. Or maybe I'm asking you to share part of the weight I've borne these thirty years, not that I doubt you've carried your own version of that weight, but maybe now I'm asking you to help carry mine.

Or maybe I just desire renewed witness, from one not independent but not attached, to the extremes of light and darkness (mostly light) bestowed as both blessing and curse on an unwitting pair in the prime of God's joy.

Whatever their purpose, whatever their effect, I hope they find you healthy and happy. You deserve those rewards more than anyone I've ever known.

Your friend from long ago—

Zach

He clipped the note to a neatly typed, crisply arranged sheaf of printed pages, slid the packet into a brown mailer, and addressed it to Rebecca Coles Newman in Greenville, South Carolina. Then he took the envelope to the post office and released it to the world, or at least to one precious part of it.

### Part I

Sea Change

Zach spotted her amidst the crowd soon as he rounded the corner to the quad where they were holding the Humanities Welcome. There were maybe thirty students and a handful of faculty advisors gathered under an open-sided tent trying unsuccessfully to escape the pounding sun and the oppressive humidity of the late-August late afternoon. The minute he saw her he realized that his rush home from a sweaty and exhausting day working in Barton's yard, his quick shower, his sweaty drive up here in his truck with no air-conditioning (why'd he bother to shower, anyway? why'd anybody bother to shower in this heat and humidity?), and his half-jog across campus were worth the effort. Few things could've made it worthwhile, but she was one of those few.

As he approached the tent a tall, athletic middle-aged man with curly blond hair and a dark tan that made him look younger than he was greeted him and shook his hand. The man identified himself as Morris Houston, Professor of Sociology, and Humanities Dean. He welcomed Zach to their gathering and to Avery University then advised him that this period of refreshments and socializing would be followed by a brief orientation session. He handed him a packet that included the names of all the humanities transfers and the college they were transferring from, invited him to pick-up his nametag from the table (it was the last one), and suggested he get himself something to drink. Zach thanked him for his hospitality and welcome. He walked to the table and picked up the nametag, peeled off the backing to expose the adhesive, then decided not to put the tag on for fear it wouldn't stick to his damp shirt. He crumpled it and stuck it in the pocket of his tan pants.

Then, with some considerable trepidation and reluctance, he tucked his chin and strode into the crowd of intimidating strangers (for Zach, all strangers were intimidating).

At the bowl of lemonade, a short, dark-haired boy with a pale face and black rimmed glasses said to him without looking up, "Wonder which one's the guy from Yale?"

Zach donned an expression of curiosity. "Which one do you think?"

"Well, it could be him." He gestured toward a good-looking preppy guy dressed in top-sider shoes with no socks, khaki shorts, and a madras-cloth shirt.

Zach had to admit that the guy looked like he was born cool. "Could be him," Zach agreed. "But if so, it looks like he wished he'd stayed at Yale."

"Yeah. Who'd be crazy enough to leave there to come here?"

"Good question," Zach said.

A few strides farther down the table, Zach ran into an attractive dark-haired girl named Lynn who was helping herself to some of the cheese that was melting on top of soggy crackers. She also was curious about the classmate from Yale. "I'm from Connecticut," she said, "but Yale was never on my radar screen."

"Where'd you transfer from?"

"Conn College."

"That's a good school."

"I guess, but no Yale."

"Yale's not all it's cracked up to be."

"You know?"

"Yes. I went there for two years."

Lynn looked at him in surprise.

"Don't look like the Yale type?" Zach asked.

"Don't act like the Yale type. And in my book, that's a good thing."

"I'll take it as a compliment, then," Zach said. "And I couldn't agree with you more. I wasn't the Yale type. That probably had something to do with my unhappiness there."

"So why here?"

Zach sighed. "That's a long story," he said. The story included withdrawing from Yale, marrying his high-school girlfriend, living two tumultuous years in Boston, separating from his wife, finding writing as an outlet to his pain and confusion, discovering Barton Cosgrove's fiction, learning that Barton Cosgrove taught at Avery University, applying to transfer to Avery, being accepted as a transfer student to Avery, and moving to Shefford earlier that summer. It was a story that didn't lend itself to discussion over melting cheese on soggy crackers. It was a story that maybe didn't lend itself to discussion with anyone anywhere.

"Maybe you could tell it to me one day," Lynn said.

He nodded. "I'd like that."

Zach moved a little further along the table to where he found a bowl of chips that wasn't yet stale. He nibbled on a handful and sipped his lemonade.

"Zachary Sandstrom."

He turned. There stood the girl he'd spotted from far off. She was even more lovely up close than from a distance—her blond hair radiant, her dark eyes gentle but captivating. She possessed a calm presence that stunned him, and her welcoming smile totally disarmed him. He'd never experienced such a combination of beauty and physical charm. He couldn't speak and barely managed to extend his hand.

She took that hand and shook it firmly. "Rebecca Coles, but everyone calls me Becca. I'm your guide." She laughed. "But don't ask me for much guidance. I've only been here a semester myself—still learning my way around."

Zach finally found his voice. "But willing to help us poor lost newbies?"

"Or get lost along with you."

"Better than nothing."

"So why'd you come south, Zachary?"

"Zach works best," he said. "And I came south for this lovely weather."

Becca released again that marvelous smile. "Isn't it great? I live for the summertime."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"You're not?"

Zach laughed and shook his head. "I'm dying in this heat—never been so uncomfortable in all my life."

"Well, you'll like the winters. All my friends from the North say the mild winters are the best part of living here."

"I'll look forward to that, and try to learn your love of this heat."

"Might need to be born here."

"You were?"

"Fifty miles west—in Greensboro."

"And transferred from?"

"UNC-Greensboro."

"So you've spent your whole life in North Carolina?"

"So far—daughter of the South."

"Good place to be."

"Except for the heat," she said with a grin.

"Except for the heat."

Just then Professor Houston walked by and asked Becca to join him and the other student and faculty advisors for the orientation program. Becca lagged just a second as the others moved to the head of the table. She touched Zach's shoulder and said, "Duty calls. Nice to meet you, Zach. Welcome to the South."

All he could say was, "Thank you. It's good to be here." Only after she'd joined the others to stand dutifully nearby as Professor Houston explained the structure of the Humanities Division and listed the majors and their departmental chairs did Zach realize how relaxed and comfortable she'd made him feel.

By the time Professor Houston had finished his monologue and the group had fielded a handful of inane questions from several anxious newcomers, the sun had set and the quad was immersed in a still hot but not stifling pink twilight. The thirty new humanities candidates were then divided among the three student advisors and invited to address particular concerns to those guides. Zach joined the other nine students gathered around Becca. She gave everyone her address and her phone number then patiently fielded each question or comment as if it were the most important question or most interesting comment she'd heard that day or maybe ever. Zach stood back and watched. He could see that everyone loved her, even if his northern compatriots didn't always understand her accent or believe her genuine attention. The North had never produced this combination of grace and charm.

Becca turned to Zach in the growing dusk after wishing the last of her charges good luck and telling her to keep in touch. "So how'd I do, Mr. Sandstrom?"

"Best Humanities Guide the South has ever produced."

"You really think so?"

He could tell her question was sincere. "Yes. You made everyone feel welcomed and cared about. That's not easy to do."

"Thank you. How'd you learn to be so watchful?"

Zach thought—Depends on whom I'm watching. But he said, "I hope to write fiction. Watchfulness is an important skill in that trade."

"A writer—I don't guess I've ever known anyone who wrote fiction. Maybe you'll let me read some of your writing one day."

"I will."

"Good. There's a party over on Middle Campus. You want to come?"

Zach shook his head. "Got other plans. But thanks for the invitation."

"Next time."

"Next time."

"Well, good luck with your first week of classes." She offered her hand.

He took her hand and shook it lightly, holding it for just a second longer than might've been expected. "Thank you. I'm sure I'll do fine. I've got the South's best ever Humanities Guide."

Becca laughed. "Give that guide a call if you need anything. Good night, Zachary Taylor Sandstrom." She walked off in the direction opposite the way Zach was headed.

Zach watched her leave, then turned and headed back into his life now permanently changed, though it took a while to grasp the size and scope of that change.

Three Kisses

Zach sat in his usual seat by the window in the lecture room on South Campus. He tried hard to keep his attention directed toward the world-renowned scholar as he guided the class of some fifty students through the economic forces and political intrigues that shaped the Italian city-states of the late fourteenth century. Zach cared about his education, wanted to learn. He tried hard to pay attention to the famous lecturer; he truly tried.

But his attention kept getting pulled toward the tall, divided-lite, arch-topped window to his left, and the beautiful, warm, sunny mid-fall afternoon stretched out beyond that window. From the second-floor classroom, Zach could see across the near lawn, so lush and green despite the season, to the tennis courts beyond, and the recreation fields beyond that. Students populated the scene—lying on blankets and towels on the lawn, playing tennis, tossing Frisbees and footballs on the rec fields. The scene beyond the divided panes defined an idyll of late-twentieth century coed campus life in America.

Yet Zach, ever one to seek the symbolism and meaning—any symbolism or meaning—in a scene or event, barely took note of the scene unfolding beneath him. His attention focused on the parking lot between the lawn and the tennis courts, off to the left and bordered by a row of tall willow oaks. About two-thirds of the way through the fifty-minute class, his watch was rewarded when Becca's blue BMW turned into that parking lot and parked in one of the spaces in the shade of those oak trees.

Zach had spotted the arrival of Becca in that parking lot on the first day of this history class and in almost every class since. She had no idea he was watching her arrive these three days each week. At first, when they were just acquaintances—besides being his Humanities Guide, they shared a class, French Novels of the Nineteenth Century— it seemed an insignificant tidbit of information; and now, as their friendship was growing, he felt embarrassed by his watch. How could he explain that the sight of her arriving in the parking lot, getting out of her car, and walking off to the South Campus library and its study carrels consistently lifted his spirits out of the dustbin of this dry lecture course to something like a shining perch atop the world? Just how corny would such an honest confession sound to her?

But on this particular afternoon, he was even more excited, and nervous, at observing her arrival. On this particular afternoon, she'd not be heading off to the library to study but would instead wait near the parking lot for him to get out of class and come down to join her for some as yet undetermined excursion—a date, on this beautiful fall afternoon. He watched her get out of her car, wave to one of the couples lounging on the lawn, then stroll over to that couple and sit beside them on their blanket. He turned to face the lecturer and focused on him for the balance of the hour but saw only Becca before his eyes.

He walked across the lawn to where she was still sitting on the blanket talking to the couple. She was wearing khaki shorts and a pink Oxford-cloth shirt with its long sleeves neatly rolled above the elbow and the top two buttons open at the neck. She stood to greet him, reached her hand out to brush his free hand when he got close enough. "Class interesting?"

Zach laughed. "Let's just say his reputation exceeds him."

"That bad, huh? Well, it's over; and now we have the rest of this beautiful afternoon." She threw her arms out and spun in a pirouette of praise to the day.

Zach could only nod agreement.

Becca introduced him to the couple on the blanket—her roommate Caroline, in navy blue jogging shorts and a lemon-colored tank-top, and her boyfriend Mike, who had his shirt and sandals off and was wearing only a pair of shorts labeled as the property of Avery Basketball (he was one of the student managers for the team). They exchanged a few pleasantries, then excused themselves and headed to Becca's car.

Once inside the car, Becca turned to him. "So where to, Zachary Taylor Sandstrom?" Zach's middle name wasn't really Taylor (it was Carl), but Becca had given him the middle name of the twelfth President first time she met him and kept it as a pet name ever since.

"You say. You're my advisor, remember?"

"Yeah, right. Like anybody could advise you, Mr. Ivy-league."

"Who's a long way from the Ivy League now, and on the home turf of Miss Rebecca Coles."

Becca nodded. "O.K. Let's go to the Gardens—they're bound to be beautiful today." She started the car and they drove the mile or so to the Gardens' parking lot.

The Gardens comprised about fifty acres of green space in the middle of campus, a natural park that included flowerbeds and paths, ornamental bushes and imported trees, fountains and ponds, a large gazebo used for outdoor weddings and ceremonies, an amphitheater-shaped grassy hillside for concerts, as well as several open fields for recreation and lounging.

As Becca'd predicted, the Gardens were beautiful on this lovely afternoon. Trouble was, everyone else on campus must've had the same thought. The paths were crowded, the benches full, the gazebo overflowing. Even the amphitheater and adjacent fields were full of students sunning themselves and tossing Frisbees. After weaving their way through the crowds around the fountains and gazebo, Becca finally found a few square yards of grass on the hillside overlooking an open field. She sat and gestured for Zach to sit beside her. They sat a few minutes in silence, observing the vibrant, chaotic scene unfolding in front of them. The field was densely packed with people lying on blankets in the sun. Many of the women were in bikinis, and some—including an attractive pair of sorority sisters just a few feet away—were lying on their stomachs with their bikini-top straps undone to let their backs tan evenly. Some of the guys were trying to toss a Frisbee in the dense crowd. Still others had music blaring from boom-boxes.

Becca laughed and shook her head. "I think they must've cancelled classes."

"And the beach trip," Zach added. He reached out to grab a Frisbee that was sailing toward Becca's head. He tossed it to the apologetic boy jogging past in bare feet.

"All we need now is a beach ball."

As if on cue, a large, multi-colored beach ball came bouncing down the hill. It landed squarely on the scantily clad buttocks of one of the sorority sisters lying on the blanket. She yelled something, but didn't roll over or move. Zach had to laugh.

Becca shook her head as she followed the beach ball's bouncing path down the hill. "This is ridiculous."

Zach nodded. "Wild scene."

"Do you know any place a little less popular?"

Zach thought a minute. "I know just the place," he said. "Let's swap your car for my truck and I'll take you there."

"Good," Becca said, standing carefully so as not to step on the nearby girls.

Becca pulled alongside Zach's beat-up carryall truck in the parking lot beside his apartment building. They got out of the car and swapped roles as they climbed into the truck's front seat, with Becca sliding over to the passenger's side, past the shift knob, and Zach getting behind the wheel. Zach said, "Hope you're not embarrassed to be seen in this beater."

Becca said, "Embarrassed? I love it. It's got so much style."

"Is that what you call rusty fenders and a mismatched driver's side door?" The original door had been side-swiped on a street in Boston and replaced by a salvaged door off a police paddy-wagon. The replacement door had never been repainted and was still a dingy white with the police logo painted over with rust-colored primer. The rest of the truck was a faded forest green.

"It's so you Zach—your own person, your own world."

He looked at her. "Sometime you'll have to tell me what that means."

"Sometime I will."

Zach started the truck and backed out of the parking space.

"Now tell me where we're going."

Zach grinned mischievously. "My secret lair."

"That sounds like fun." Her smile never faded.

"You're not scared?"

"No."

"Darn. Not much of a mystery man, I guess."

"That's a good thing. I'm not much for surprises."

Zach said, "I thought we'd go by Barton's place. He's got some woods behind his house and a beautiful field."

"Sounds nice. He won't mind?"

"He's out of town at a conference. He tells me to feel free to walk in his woods anytime I want."

Becca nodded. "Lead on."

Zach parked his truck in a narrow turnaround where Barton's drive started to curve up toward his house. Zach opened the door and slid out of the truck; Becca slid across the vinyl seat and climbed out on his side. As soon as he shut the door to the truck, a potent autumn stillness embraced them. After three hard frosts last week, the insects were all dead or dormant, the leaves were mostly off the trees, and the large pond to their left was utterly stagnant. Zach took Becca's hand and led her into the bright woods along a rutted logging track.

At the top of the hill, the woods thinned and opened onto a three-acre triangular broom-straw field. The thin brown grass came up to their knees and released white, feather-like tassels as they moved past. The sky was a silver-tinged cloudless blue, the sun a warm golden disk just now touching the bare tips of the highest branches of the tallest poplars on the far side of the field. The silence that had overwhelmed them on exiting the truck persisted even in this open and inviting field. No breeze stirred, no branch shivered, no blade of grass moved if they didn't move it, and even that movement was silent.

Zach led Becca, her hand still in his, straight into the heart of the field, to where it leveled off and then began to slope gradually downhill to the woods at the far side. This was Zach's favorite spot in all of Barton's forty acres—the road invisible behind the hill, no house or sign of human habitation in any direction, the open field merging into the tall deciduous woods beyond. Somewhere back in those woods was a ravine with a spring at its head and a trickle of water running into the creek that formed the western boundary of Barton's land.

Zach released Becca's hand and held his arms out toward the sloping field and the woods beyond.

Becca nodded but still didn't speak. She sat on the grass at the highest point of the hill, just where it began to slope away. Zach sat beside her, leaving about a foot between them. The bare tree trunks cast long parallel shadows up the slope and across the field to where they sat. Even in the first few minutes after they sat, the earth rotated just enough in relation to the sun to cast one long shadow first across Becca, then into the space between them, then across Zach, then off to the field east, leaving them both in the sun's warm late-day glow.

"This is beautiful, Zach. Thank you for sharing it."

He nodded, first to the woods and their eternal creator, then turned and nodded to Becca, her golden hair in golden radiant fire in the golden sun. He wanted to speak but couldn't. The air had left his lungs at the beauty of the girl beside him. He faced the woods again, tried to catch his breath.

"I bet you spend a lot of time out here," she said.

"Every chance I get, but not as much as I'd like." He spoke these words to the woods.

"Surprised anyone could pry you away from this." She gestured toward the woods, then turned to him and smiled.

He nodded to the woods. "One of my favorite places on earth." Then he added in his head but not aloud—that just became sacred the moment you sat down here and the sun kissed your face. He wanted to turn toward her but couldn't. Every muscle in his body was locked in place. But his voice still worked. "Somewhere along the way, I realized it wasn't enough."

"What?"

"Nature. And I've looked pretty thoroughly. Even a spot beautiful and peaceful as this isn't enough by itself."

"You mean isn't enough if you're alone."

"Isn't enough if you're alone," he repeated. "I've looked."

She turned back to the woods. "That's what I've always figured, though I never really looked very hard or long. I love the outdoors—the beach, the woods, the mountains. But I've always known I had to be with people."

"It took me awhile to learn that."

They sat in a new silence that was somehow different from the previous one. Where the earlier silence had been imposed by the overwhelming scope and stillness of the setting and extended far out as they could see or imagine, this silence had been chosen by and just for them, extended just to the outer edge of their two bodies. It was the silence of sudden unexpected intimacy.

Zach's muscles relaxed and he turned to brave another look at Becca. The sun had fallen behind a grove of pine trees deeper in the woods, and the whole hillside was now wrapped in pale gray twilight. Becca's hair was still golden but not on fire, her face in profile still lovely but not debilitating. She seemed deep in thought, or was maybe focused on some movement down along the edge of the woods. Zach slowly closed the space between her face and his and kissed her dry cheek with dry lips. He froze in that gray twilight moment, his lips touching her skin, for several seconds that seemed an eternity to him—long enough to know that he'd just discovered something that changed his universe forever. Then he just as slowly and silently retreated to his former position. Becca never moved or spoke; her intent gaze into the woods never altered.

They sat for a few more minutes in their silence, the silence of new intimacy. Then Zach stood, helped Becca up, and walked her back to the truck through the deepening twilight.

Back at the apartment building's parking lot, Becca didn't wait for Zach to open his door, but instead opened her passenger side door. Just as she started to slide out that side, she stopped suddenly, turned and quickly leaned her body across the length of the front seat, and kissed Zach on his right cheek. Then she slid out her side of the truck.

She leaned back into the truck's dome light from the darkness beyond. "Thank you, Zach." Then she added, almost as an afterthought, "I'll see you tomorrow in class." She disappeared into the night.

Zach stared toward her fading presence.

The Rose

Becca led Zach down the hall and into the kitchen where Sarah was making a peanut-butter sandwich for a late-afternoon snack. "Hey, Sis," Becca said across the island's countertop.

"Hi, Kiddo," Sarah said softly. "Keep it down. Katie's asleep." Katie was Sarah's year-and-a-half-old daughter.

"That's too bad," Becca said in a low voice.

"Not for me. She's got me worn out today."

"No, for me. I was hoping to see her and introduce her to Zach."

"She may be up before you leave. But how about starting out by introducing me to Zach?" She stuck the knife in the open jar of peanut butter and extended her hand across the counter toward the tall stranger in their house.

"Sorry," Becca said. "Sarah, this is Zach Sandstrom. Zach, this is my older sister Sarah."

Zach reached across the counter and shook Sarah's hand lightly. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," she said then looked at her hand. "Sorry about the peanut butter. There are paper towels by the sink." She nodded toward the sink under the window looking out onto the drippy and cool fall day.

Zach smiled. "No problem," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Good for the skin."

Sarah laughed. "I've always thought so, but what do you do about all the birds and mice following you around?"

"There's worse company to keep."

"Becca said you loved nature. She wasn't kidding."

Becca waved her hand between the two. "Hello. Becca's here guys. You can include her in your conversation if you want."

Sarah smiled at her sister, "Sorry, Bec." She touched Becca's hand resting on the counter. "There—you can have some peanut butter too."

"Sarah!" Becca exclaimed. "It's not my idea of a skin cream!" She went to the sink to wash her hands.

"How about for food—y'all want a snack?"

"It's almost dinner time, Sarah. We're going to go to Tony's before the movie."

"Little snack before dinner never hurt anyone. How about you, Zach?"

Zach had walked over to the double French doors leading out onto the deck backed by autumn woods. "No thanks. I'll save my appetite."

Sarah snickered as she finished putting her sandwich together. "Probably just saying that for Becca."

Becca turned from the sink. "Sarah, mind your manners."

"What manners?"

Zach gazed out at the woods silent and sleepy in the fall drizzle. Though Becca's family's house was on a cul-de-sac in a highly developed part of Greensboro, the view from these glass doors revealed only nature—a mix of deciduous trees, some with their foliage gone, some clinging to brown and gold leaves, and lofty dark pines. The setting recalled for Zach similar days in similar woods from his childhood on the farm. Though he was delighted to be here—with Becca proudly showing him her home and introducing him to her family (Sarah anyway, Katie if she awoke, her parents if they got home from work and errands before they left)—he felt a sudden yearning for the long ago damp fall woods of his childhood, could even smell in the nostrils of his memory the brassy odor of decaying leaves and approaching winter. The view and the memory lulled him toward a dreamy daze.

"Zach!" Becca touched him on the shoulder.

He turned and looked at her. "Sorry. Something about your backyard reminded me of home."

Becca smiled and gazed at him with those ever kind eyes. "You miss your family."

"I didn't think so, but something about the day and the woods—." He shrugged. "Just a passing feeling."

"It's O.K. to miss your family, Zach. You don't always have to be the brave loner."

"I'm not; I'm with you."

"Good. Let me show you the rest of the house, and introduce you to Prince Albert."

Behind them, Sarah said, "Don't wake Katie," mumbling the words between bites of her sticky sandwich.

Becca had brought Zach by her family's house before taking him out to dinner at a favorite local restaurant then on to the just released movie The Rose, showing in a theater in the same shopping center as the restaurant. This was only their third official date; and the fact that Becca had suggested coming to her hometown for the movie (when it was playing at several venues in Shefford) then added this impromptu visit to her home, was a development of not so subtle significance. Zach was already deeply in love with this beautiful girl, had said as much in a prose poem he'd recently given her and hinted it in words and actions. But he was simultaneously pulling hard on the reins of his surging emotions, trying his best not to overwhelm Becca or get too far ahead of her in this still nascent attraction. So this visit carried sizable meaning for them both.

Becca led him down the center hallway and gestured toward the formal living room near the entry and the dining room opposite, then pointed up the open and spacious stairs. "The bedrooms," she whispered. "Where Katie's sleeping."

Zach nodded.

They got to the end of the hall and entered the family room at the back of the house. "And this is Prince Albert," Becca said and squatted down beside a loveseat covered with an old bedspread where a large English bulldog slowly raised his jowly broad head. She lowered her face and rubbed her nose against his flattened wrinkled snout. "How's my old Bertie?" she cooed. The dog's abundant flabby skin quivered at her touch and words, like a large vat of brown furred jelly.

Zach loved all animals; but with a farmer's son's practical bias, bulldogs were not high on his list of desired pets. They were useless as working dogs—prone to injuries and illness with chronic joint and respiratory problems due to overbreeding and misguided selection. But he sure loved this dog's cooing owner, and would welcome the bestowal of similar loving attentions on him, when—or if—she ever felt so inclined. He knelt beside her on the carpeted floor and scratched behind the dog's cropped ears. "Pleased to meet you, Prince Albert," he said and shook the dog's near paw.

Becca straightened up from Bertie, briefly lost her balance, and fell into Zach's side. Zach steadied her with his arm around her waist. Though she'd quickly regained her balance, Becca remained leaning against Zach for several seconds, not looking up at him but staring blankly at the dog and the couch, her breath stuck in her lungs.

Prince Albert rose with much stiff-jointed, grunting effort and nuzzled his head against Becca's shoulder. Becca laughed and stood. "Poor old Bertie," she said as she picked the dog up and set him gently on the floor. They followed his waddle out into the hallway.

Becca looked at her watch. "We should probably head on to dinner. The movie starts at seven."

Zach nodded. "Ready anytime you are."

"Let me find Sarah and say good-bye," she said and headed off toward the kitchen.

Zach waited by the front door, silently admiring the high ceilings and ornate moldings of the entry hall and central stairs.

Becca returned a few minutes later. She shrugged. "Don't know where she went."

They'd just turned toward the door when sound and movement from the head of the stairs caused them to look back.

Sarah slowly descended the stairs holding a sleepy child. She reached the bottom and walked over to Zach then turned her back to him so he could see the little girl's face resting on her shoulder. "Zach, this is Katie."

Zach leaned over and tried to catch the child's attention. The little girl buried her face in her mother's neck and hid under the feathery curls of her own light brown hair.

Sarah turned back around to face Zach. "Still half-asleep," she said. "You won't find any of that shyness when she's awake—more like try to find a way to hold her down."

Zach nodded. "I'll look forward to seeing her sometime when she's more awake." He reached out and shook Katie's bare foot protruding from beneath her frilly pink dress that Sarah had put on her just for him. "Pleased to meet you, Katie," he said to the back of her head.

Over Sarah's shoulder, Katie said, "Bert-bert," and extended her arms toward the bulldog waddling down the hall.

Sarah laughed. "Katie's favorite toy." Katie squealed as the dog disappeared into the kitchen. "Y'all have fun at the movie while poor Sarah sits bored at home." She offered them a full pouty face.

Becca leaned over and kissed her sister's cheek then the back of Katie's head. "We'll send you some cheese to go with that whine, Sis."

"I could use it," Sarah said before turning and heading down the hall.

Behind them as they headed out the door, Katie yelled, "Bye-bye."

Zach was silent for the short drive to the restaurant as Becca concentrated on navigating the heavy rush-hour traffic and he tried to find his way through a sudden upwelling of melancholia. Something about this fading damp day in this fading calendar year mixed with Becca's warm and welcoming home and family and his own unexpected recall of his childhood had pushed him to the edge of a dark precipice he hadn't visited for months—at least since meeting Becca, the golden light in his recently revived life. He wondered at the apparent contradiction in his feelings—that as he got closer to this center of calling and purpose, he somehow felt further away. He'd have liked to share his feelings with Becca, and let her help him push the gloom aside (he had no doubt she could do as much, with a simple look or word). But he didn't even understand the feelings himself, and knew he would tangle it all up if he tried to express them to Becca. So he kept quiet and watched the traffic pass and hoped the dark shadow across his heart would pass soon as well.

The high-school aged hostess seated them in a booth about halfway back in the long, narrow restaurant that was situated in the strip mall between a shoe store and a tailor. Becca held up her menu after the hostess headed back to the front of the restaurant. "The family's Greek but the food's Italian, and it's all good and all made in-house."

Zach smiled. "A match made in Heaven—Greek method and Italian style. That combination managed to rule the world for about a thousand years, and define art for a lot longer than that. They ought to be able to turn out a good meal."

Becca nodded. "They do."

They got an antipasto platter to share, and Becca ordered manicotti and Zach got eggplant parmesan served over spaghetti (one of his favorite dishes).

As they waded through their generous portions of delicious food, Becca looked at Zach across the table and nibbled on a round of the warm and soft bread from the napkin-lined basket. "Sarah likes you."

Zach laughed. "Sarah likes men."

"It's that obvious?"

"Not in an inappropriate or desperate way. It's just clear she lights up in the presence of males. I'd like to think it was something special about me, but I can tell it's not."

"Good," Becca said. "Save the special part for me, not my sister."

"A little sibling rivalry?"

"Not really. We're best friends, always have been. But there've been times I feel in her shadow."

"She needs you now."

"You mean with Katie?"

"I mean with getting her life back on track."

"I'll help her where I can, but she'll find her own way. She always has."

Zach nodded. "I can see that. Still, you're lucky to have each other."

"I know."

"And the special part is yours."

Becca looked at him with questioning eyes and a tilt of her head.

"What you asked for—the special part of me. It's all yours, if you want it."

Becca wrapped him in her kind gaze. "I do want it, and thank you for the gift."

"It's been yours for quite some time."

Becca nodded. "Part of me has known that for a while, and part of me just discovered it."

Zach paused, then said, "I just discovered something myself—at your house and on the ride over here."

"What's that?"

"You have your home, and it's a good home—warm and loving and comfortable. I haven't had a real home for a long time, not like that. But I do now." He paused and looked up at her. "It's you."

Becca stared at him across the booth. Her eyes never left his. She finally said, "Welcome home," and released a smile that sustained Zach not only for that evening but for months to come.

But that steady gaze and radiant smile that was for Zach an answer to his hope beyond all hopes, his inner calm where there'd previously been only fear and chaos—that promise was not above being tested, as it was almost immediately as the two of them sat near the middle of the full theater and watched the powerful performance and story of a female singer steadily imploding under the weight of fame crossed with self-loathing, success mixed with substance abuse. The film accomplished its purpose, with Zach at least, as it drew him into the star's frenetic downward spiral, with chances at salvation just missed or tragically ignored and the disastrous end finally unavoidable, however much one wished for some better outcome—for the star, for the neurosis she exhibited.

Caught in the riptide of this drama, Zach found himself longing for the reassurance and hope he knew in Becca—wanted to see it in her eyes, feel it through her skin. But her eyes were hidden to him in the dark theater, and her skin was still apparently off limits, as he waited for some clear sign from her of openness to touch, a sign that was not forthcoming—at least not in this dark but still highly public domain. So he consoled himself best he could—against the emotional turbulence played out on the screen and within his heart—by feeling the press of her shoulder against his above the seat arm, and by stealing the occasional glance of her perfect profile in moments of bright reflection from the action on the screen.

She smiled at him after they'd sat all the way through the credits and the house lights came up. There were no more than a handful of patrons still in the large theater, giving them finally a modest degree of privacy. Zach was both consoled and troubled by Becca's glowing smile—it was what he needed and longed for, yet it seemed so inconsistent with the drama they'd just watched, the believable self-destruction they'd just witnessed. Where was the blank howl? Where were the tears?

"You really related to her," Becca said.

"You could tell?"

"I felt it in your tense muscles. I see it in your eyes."

Zach nodded slowly then looked toward the large empty screen, that motionless void almost more frightening than the tragic drama that had so recently been played out across it. "I've danced along the edge of a similar chasm, and not so long ago—not with the fame part of course, but the self-loathing and the self-destructiveness were all too familiar. I don't know if I feel more gratitude for my escape or shock at my close miss." He faced Becca again. She was still there, still smiling, still the grace-filled center to an unfolding better life. He could've easily knelt before her and unburdened his heart of a lifetime of confusion and loss and pain, so vulnerable did he feel. But of course he didn't, knew it wasn't the time or the place—hoped there'd never be the time or place, if her heart of light could evaporate that ocean of tears before it ever rose to the surface.

But Becca with her unfailing instinct for kindness and care, found a substitute almost as good, almost as efficacious as his soul's long delayed catharsis—she offered him her hand and used that touch to lead him forth into the still damp fall night.

### Trust-1

Zach drove to Becca's apartment on a slate-gray November Saturday night. The sky was low and overcast, reflecting the lights of the town back on themselves, making the world seem very small and very still.

Zach had not seen Becca since their dinner date on Tuesday night, before the Thanksgiving break; and his whole being was desperate to be in her presence again. While this longing had physical manifestations—increased heart rate, heightened alertness and sensitivity to the world around him—it was not a physical longing. Rather, it was a near-overwhelming emotional need to reveal—to express to her in ways she'd understand—his love for her. After six weeks of casual acquaintance and six weeks of dating (which had included no more than a couple of chaste kisses, hands held on walks together), Zach could no longer suppress what he'd felt since the first moment he'd seen her—that she was the place where the road of his life must stop and stay. He knew—some detached part of his consciousness knew—that this impulse was a reckless leap of faith—in her and in the one who put her in his path. But he never considered any other option, not once. In his heart, there were no other options.

Becca opened the door before he knocked. Without a word, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his lips then hugged him as tight as she could, her face pressed into his chest. They stayed like that, in the doorway, for a long time. Someone walking past would've seen the silhouette of one person in the doorway, and that silhouette unmoving. But no one walked by; the campus was deserted for Break. Zach and Becca had the world, or at least this part of it, to themselves.

Becca finally leaned back far enough to look up at Zach, her arms still wrapped around his waist, her hands firmly linked behind him. "I can't believe how much I've missed you," she said, then pressed her face against his chest again and squeezed him even tighter than before.

Zach could only laugh, a laugh of pure joy and fulfillment.

From that moment, the rest of their evening unfolded in an alternate universe, a world where all that mattered, all that existed, was the space between their two bodies, where everything that lay beyond their eyes and lips and hands was a prop, a two-dimensional stage set of inconsequence. Each one's sight was locked on the other all night long. Even when their physical gaze had to leave the other—when Becca slid across the truck seat, when Zach drove to the restaurant—they still were gazing at the other in their hearts. And when they were free to look each into the other's eyes, their locked stare filled the space between them with the almost tangible essence of their feeling. Weeks later a mutual friend remarked to them that she'd seen them that night at the restaurant, and had called twice to catch their attention, each time to no avail. "You two were out of it," she said. "The look you shared was scary."

They went to Milt's for dinner. It was one of their favorite haunts, but this night it was different. When they walked in, everybody looked up but they didn't look back. Several people nodded a greeting in their direction, but they didn't nod back. They sat at a table against the wall, second from the corner. They ordered a pizza and a pitcher of beer. They sipped the beer, nibbled on the pizza, talked of Thanksgiving Day observations and exploits (Becca had spent the holiday with her family in Greensboro, Zach with friends in town seated on their back deck on the 80-degree afternoon). But in truth neither really tasted the beer or the pizza, or heard the words of the other, however intently they seemed to be listening. The sum total of their experience that night was transmitted through the eyes, eyes that saw the other's and beyond into this huge black void that was not the least bit frightening despite its blackness, a void that was in fact imbued with every promise and hope each had, not only for the other but also—for that moment at least, which was all they knew—for their whole lives.

They stayed at the restaurant a long time that for them passed like no time at all. Because of the holiday weekend, the restaurant was not as busy as usual; and no one was waiting for their table. So the young waitress left them alone; it was clear they had everything they needed. A little before closing time, she slipped the check between them.

Zach drove them to his apartment through a light drizzle. He held Becca's hand as they walked from the parking lot to the building then up the stairs and along the breezeway to his door. He opened the door and they stepped into his living room without turning on the light.

They'd not once kissed or embraced since leaving Becca's doorway. Yet what they'd exchanged in those hours that weren't hours at all but just one instant and all instants was far beyond physical touch, was far more rare and perilous than the most passionate embrace, the most unbridled lust.

So neither was nervous or awkward as they walked into Zach's bedroom, as each undressed the other in the streetlight's dim glow that snuck around and pushed through the curtains pulled across the room's small window, as they lay down on Zach's crude bed comprised of two sleeping bags spread out on the carpeted floor and covered with sheets and two wool blankets, as they labored to express the love that had already been fully realized through their eyes in the language of joined flesh.

Trust-2

"You fell asleep on top of me." Becca gazed up at him from the dim shadows of the floor where she lay enfolded in the covers of his crude bed.

Zach stood in the doorway to the bedroom drying his hair with a beige towel. He smiled at the memory she'd summoned.

Becca didn't join his smile or laugh. She continued to stare at him from the shadows, unwilling to let him shrug off the incident.

Zach's smile faded. "Was I too heavy?"

"Your weight didn't bother me."

"Then what?"

Becca hesitated.

"What?"

She blurted out, "You fell asleep inside me."

Zach could've melted to the carpeted floor right then and there in love and tenderness for this girl caught up in confusion, regret, and shame. Instead, he knelt, naked except for the clean white boxers he'd put on after showering, at the foot of his spare bed, lay his head on her knees beneath the covers, and hugged her legs with all his strength and passion. He was overcome with gratitude—for last night, for her.

When he looked up, she was gazing at him in perplexed wonder. He said, "That's never happened before. I've never trusted anyone that much."

"Trust?"

He nodded slowly, his chin bumping her knees. "What else could it be?"

She didn't answer.

He lifted his body up on his hands and knees; and, careful not to put any weight on her, he crawled forward till his head was above hers resting on the pillow. He kissed her forehead at the edge of her hairline. Her skin was cool to the touch of his lips.

"I should get home," she said, and gently slid out from under his hovering body.

Trust-3

He ran into her on Monday morning on the cobblestone sidewalk in front of the Library. He wasn't expecting to see her there, and it was one of the few times he'd ever encountered her without spotting her from far off. Despite his surprise, he smiled broadly and walked over.

She looked terrible (which was hard for her to do). She looked like she hadn't slept since he'd last seen her. There were dark circles under her eyes and a frown on her face.

But Zach's smile and the love that lay behind it never missed a beat despite her incriminating look. There was nothing she could do to drive him away or lessen his devotion. Without a word, he reached out and brushed her cheek with a gentleness from some other realm, as if he were cradling the most precious object in the universe—which he was.

She said, "We have to talk."

He said, "O.K."

She said, "Can I come by your apartment this afternoon?"

He said, "Sure." His fingertips still brushed her cool cheek with the lightest of touches—almost as if imagined, almost as if not there at all.

"See you then," she said.

He lowered his hand.

She walked away.

When she'd got up that morning (after a sleepless night), when she'd arrived on campus, when she'd seen him from a ways off, Becca'd fully decided to tell Zach it wasn't going to work, to find the right opportunity to break off their relationship. But then she saw how he looked at her there on the sidewalk in front of the Library, how he'd touched her like he was touching an angel. No one had ever looked at her like that, touched her like that. No one else would ever look at her like that, touch her like that. Then she knew—this man will never hurt me.

When Becca met Zach at his apartment that afternoon, the first thing she said was, "Can I keep a change of clothes here, a toothbrush, some shampoo?"

He said, "Of course."

She turned around, walked out to her car, and brought back her overnight bag.

The Only Meaning

Gentle sun evaporates the haze stretched like gauze over the sleeping town and we find ourselves standing alone in the cool wash of morning light, awake, finally free to search the meaning of what we'd shared the night before—the dark dancing shadows we'd cast in pursuit of a thing we neither recognized nor understood, our minds and souls helpless before the driving locomotive of love, that boundless energy of need that would not quit short of victory, victory for it being our surrender.

For surely it all meant something, but what? Candidates rush by in dizzying fashion—betrayal, manipulation, disrespect, fear, abuse. Words flood the head, all shouting one thing—mistake. Was it? Standing in the trough offered so readily by the world, by the real that refuses to admit romance, it's hard to find any answer except: yes—we made the mistake, we suffer the consequences. Regret tugs at our faces until not even our attempts at smiles can hide the doubt that grows with each breath. We part, grim victims.

But life has no use for such remorse and time dissolves those visions of doom, substituting this—you, me, lying together in crude bed in the dim moments before dawn, lightening sky prying entrance around drawn shades, enough light to show this: me on my back, you half on your side, your head resting on my chest, us both asleep but waking gradually to find ourselves together—together, safe at last. It is a moment no one can ever take from us. It is the only meaning offered by that night that will survive time's erosion.

Babysitting

Zach opened Larry and Celine's front door to discover Becca standing on the front stoop in the pale glow of the light mounted on the brick veneer. She glanced up at him with the sweetest tilt of her head and the shiest of half smiles, looking like a schoolgirl peddling raffle tickets to fund a band trip. He'd been expecting her so knew who it was when he heard the light tapping on the door. But now in his vision—framed against the autumn dark in this quiet setting, looking down for a moment, then back up at him with hopeful expectation, her hands clasped loosely in front of her—she seemed to him brand new, some gift from years ago he'd forgot to open and just came across at the back of the closet or tucked under the eaves in the attic. What's more, not only was Becca brand new—a surprise gift—but so was he, suddenly in and through her shed of all the defeats and disappointments and demands of a broken marriage and a disassembled life under radical reconstruction. All those encumbrances simply evaporated beneath that shy but open-hearted gaze and the effortless physical beauty of this innocent standing before him on this new and neutral turf. He silently held one hand out to her; she took it and stepped up into the house.

Zach was babysitting Marie, the precocious seven-year-old daughter of Larry, Zach's supervisor at his job in University Archives, and Celine, Larry's young and ethereal French-born wife. Late in the week, Larry'd lucked into a pair of tickets to tonight's Avery basketball game; and Zach had volunteered on short notice to babysit Marie. By agreeing to babysit, Zach had foregone the chance to attend any of the numerous concerts and parties occurring on campus on this clear cool Friday night; but he felt no sense of loss or sacrifice. He was happy to help out Larry and Celine, who'd frequently welcomed him into their home in this quiet residential neighborhood; and he adored the quick-as-a-whip Marie with her bossy nature and perceptive unabashed declarations. He'd figured to spend his night reading Tolstoy after Marie went to bed till Becca phoned shortly before he left his apartment and asked if she could join him later in the evening. He'd given her the address and left his Tolstoy at home.

Zach gently closed the door behind them and raised one finger to his lips. "She went to bed about fifteen minutes ago," he whispered. "I think she's asleep."

Becca nodded and grinned. "Quiet as a mouse."

He led her across the living room and down the hall past the dark dining room and the dimly lit kitchen toward the bright den at the back of the house. Just before entering the den, while still in the close confines and privacy of the hall, he turned to her and wrapped her in his arms. She hugged him back and pressed the side of her face against his shirt and closed her eyes. He pressed his face against the crown of her head, inhaled the scent of her hair, breathed in her fresh and redemptive life. They'd recently unmasked other routes to total merging, held those memories and promises close and dear. But this night in this place through this contact they discovered yet another point of union in what seemed, at the moment at least, a boundless supply of such opportunities—they discovered together youthful infatuation, passed that gift back and forth. Then they walked into the den. Becca shed her coat and draped it on the back of the chair, and they sat together on the couch.

The T.V. was on with the volume down low, tuned in to a comic series set in the rural South about a couple fast-talking, moonshine-running brothers with a souped-up flame-orange car and a sister who liked to wear hotpants above her long and oh-so-shapely legs. It was the latest version of Hollywood making money at the expense of the South, peddling clichés and stereotypes to a national audience long dismissive or ignorant of the region's rich and complex culture.

Becca laughed ironically at the slapstick humor and the mangled accents. "You'd think they'd at least try to sound right."

"Why? It's all part of the joke—like the California hills that are supposed to be Georgia or the white suit on the portly mayor."

"A joke on them or us?"

"Feeling a little regional sensitivity?"

"Rather not have the whole world think we're all uneducated hicks that spend our time working on cars in jeans so tight they leave nothing to the imagination."

"You talking about the guys or the girls?"

"It's the guys working on the cars."

"I mean the tight jeans—does it bother you with the guys or the girls or both?"

"Sex is sex, I guess; but I'm more used to it with girls. Since when did guys start advertising their wares in public?"

Zach laughed. "Not much for Women's Lib, I see."

"Not much for exhibitionism, male or female," Becca said in earnest. "Best to keep one's privates private."

Zach nuzzled the side of her neck but kept his hands in his lap. "To be shared in private."

She nodded. "Shared in private—some things shouldn't be cheapened."

"Good luck getting that genie back in the bottle."

"Never got out—not in this girl."

Zach gazed down at the lovely girl reclining beside him and striking an easy pose in perfect balance between wholesome beauty and overflowing sexuality. He restrained his impulse to engage her abundant gifts. "Thank you for being here."

She rolled her head slowly against the soft cushions of the low couch back and smiled up at him. "No place I'd rather be."

Marie stood in the doorway with a blanket over her shoulder looking so much like the vulnerable little girl she was but tried so hard to hide during the day. "I had a bad dream," she whispered.

Zach jumped up and jogged to her. He squatted down to her height. "Are you scared?"

She shook her head. "Not anymore."

Zach nodded. "That's good. You want to sit with us a little while?"

She nodded sleepily, rubbing her cheek with her baby blanket.

Zach picked her up and carried her to the couch with her head resting on his shoulder. He set her on the couch next to Becca. Marie looked surprised at the presence of this stranger in her house. "This is my friend Becca," Zach said. "She came by to help me watch over you."

Marie studied Becca with a serious stare.

Becca smiled and opened her arms to the stern little girl.

Marie hesitated just a second then nodded. "O.K.," she said and leaned back against Becca, tucked her head against Becca's near shoulder and pulled her baby blanket up under her chin.

Becca wrapped her arms gently around the child.

Zach sat next to Marie but remained upright on the couch, not leaning toward the reclining girl. He patted Marie's knee with his far hand. After a moment, he reached above the child, extended his arm along the back of the couch, and brushed Becca's hair and cheek with his fingers.

Becca glanced across at him. Above the little girl, their eyes exchanged the love of innocents—that pure, that fleeting.

Beneath their gaze, Marie said without looking up, "It's O.K. to touch her. Boys and girls who love each other can touch."

Becca offered a quiet laugh and nodded.

Zach said, "Thank you"—barely a whisper, directed to all within earshot.

Dear Becca

Tonight, I have no poetry begging to be written, no bold philosophies clamoring against my skull. I don't wish to cry; I don't wish to laugh. I only want to talk to you through these words, utter simple devotions that are too often hidden beneath my rhetoric.

Bec, I miss you when I'm not with you—always. It's not a desperate loneliness, just an emptiness where there shouldn't be any emptiness, a vital thing missing that should be there.

I love you, Becca, feel alive and at peace in your presence. I make myself vulnerable to you, trust absolutely both you and the love we have. You see, this love was given to us. Whoever or whatever gave it to us will not abandon us now.

I will care for you in every way available to me. This is, finally, the main gift I have to offer. I extend it without condition.

Just as I miss you every minute I'm away from you, I delight in every minute I'm with you, never wish to be anywhere except in your presence.

I'm completely devoted to you and your well-being, desire your happiness above all else, will use all my resources to insure that end.

Selfless? I suppose. That's what my love is. That's what you call forth in me.

With all my love,

Zach

Chapel Worship

They entered the Chapel through a lesser-used side door and snuck down the side aisle and slipped into a pew beside one of the massive carved stone supports for the roof just as the service was starting. An elderly couple in the pew slid a few feet toward the center so that they'd be able to see past the stone column to the chancel and choir and pulpit in the distance at the front of the sanctuary.

Zach was still helping Becca take off her wool coat when the huge baroque pipe organ at the rear of the Chapel played the introduction to the processional hymn and everyone in the cavernous space stood at once and began singing:

Wake, awake, for night is flying,

The watchmen on the heights are crying,

Awake, Jerusalem, at last!

Zach laid Becca's coat neatly on the pew behind the pillar. By the time he turned, Becca had already found the hymn in the hymnal and offered him one side of the book, that they might sing from it together. He was deeply touched by this simple gesture (as natural and effortless to her as breathing or blinking those soft eyelids) and knew, that fast, that all the effort invested to get here—rising early after staying up late, showering quickly, sharing the bathroom's mirror and vanity, dressing in their Sunday finest, driving up the hill and struggling to find an open parking spot, then all but jogging up the hill through the woods to the side entrance to the Chapel—was already justified. He took his half of the hymnal with his far hand and gently slid his other arm around her waist. She responded by softly leaning into his touch, pressing her whole right side against his left—calf to calf, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, waist to waist. Zach sang a few verses of the familiar hymn in a low deep voice, barely above a whisper, almost as if singing just to himself and God.

The procession drew abreast their pew, led by the crucifer holding aloft a large brass cross mounted on a wooden pole. An acolyte with a pole with a flame at its tip followed the crucifer, then choir members in blue and white robes, then ministers in white albs, then clergy in white vestments with blue stoles. Once past their pew, Zach could no longer see the procession through all the congregation standing and singing; but he could mark their progress by the movement of the cross down the center aisle as it seemed to float above the crowd on its slow way to the front of the sanctuary.

They reached the end of the hymn before the procession was complete and all the ministers and choir members in their places, so the organist improvised by playing another verse. The congregation remained standing, facing front, some in taut reverence, others glancing around in confusion or impatience, a few singing the first verse all over again. Finally, with the procession completed and all participants in their places in the chancel, the organist ended the hymn with a window-rattling flourish. The presiding minister offered a liturgical greeting, the congregation responded, and everyone sat down.

Zach couldn't keep his arm around Becca as they sat down (much as he wanted to, it would've been awkward and uncomfortable), but he found her near hand as they settled into the oak pew and twined his fingers into hers and laid their joined hands and their merged arms into their common lap, their hips and shoulders as tightly pressed together as possible without drawing attention.

From his seat of utter contentment, far from the readings and gestures and ritualized forms unfolding at the front of the sanctuary, half-hidden by the column at the end of a pew two-thirds of the way back in the massive nave, Zach could let his mind float. He didn't hear the readings or the anthems or the sermon. His mind floated up to the peak of the nave, high, high above the floor, into the groin vaults cast by craftsmen imported from Italy some fifty years before. He floated like a little balloon way up there, bumping against the stone ceiling. And from way up there, from that spot of cherished perspective in this space of sanctified purpose and portentous ceremony, gazing down on all those worshipers in all their finery, all their hopes, their suffering, their fears, their failings, blessed with this moment of divine perspective—Zach saw only his hand in Becca's: nothing else in this whole wide space, nothing else in this whole wide world. What's more, in those joined hands he saw not eight fingers and two thumbs together palm to palm, not two fleshes or even one merged flesh, not sinew taut or blood pulsing—he saw consecrated love. In this holy place surrounded by these holy people, blessed by God and blessed by these masses, he perceived—for the first and perhaps only time—what he and Becca were together, that shining light through the ages—on the mountaintop, in the stable, out of the darkness: the Creator's joy.

Becca squeezed his hand (even tighter) and nudged him lightly with her shoulder. Emerging from an open-eyed daze, he looked around him and saw everyone with their heads bowed. Becca also had her head bowed and her eyes gently closed. That glimpse of her—perfect angel in perfect angelic pose—took his breath away. How had he come to find this Heaven? What had he done to earn this gift? He joined the congregation and bowed his head and closed his eyes.

He heard the minister praying, the words amplified through the sound system with one of its speakers mounted high on the column beside him. The minister would conclude each prayer petition with the phrase, "Lord, in your mercy," and the congregation would respond, "Hear our prayer."

Zach well knew that the world needed a God of mercy—boy, did it ever. But at that moment his heart was far, far removed from any sense of needing or wishing mercy for himself, so caught up in absolute touch-the-sky elation and thanksgiving for this perfect creation beside him, her hand in his, that for a minute the very word itself—mercy—seemed without meaning, two syllables without context, history, or relevance.

Yet everything about this place and this day and his life reinforced the fact of a creator, and of a division between the creator and the created, and of circumstance beyond the control of him or anyone except God. So with the minister's prayers echoing around him, he formed his own spontaneous prayer, spoken in a firm whisper inside his head—Thank you for Becca. As you brought her to me, I know you can take her away. Please don't take her away. Just as he finished, the minister's Lord, in your mercy rang out over the congregation. Zach suddenly knew the word, had deeply and intimately rediscovered its meaning after his momentary blindness of hubris and presumption, knew well his need for mercy, now more than ever. He joined in the congregational response with an almost desperate plea—Hear my prayer.

As the organist played the postlude and the congregation filed toward the doors by the center aisle, the elderly couple stood patiently behind them while Zach helped Becca with her coat. The woman, with her hair in a tight perm and wearing a navy-blue dress with white lace trim and a mink stole draped over her shoulders, asked, "You two kids checking this place out?"

Zach finished straightening Becca's coat collar but left his hand brushing her neck under her hair. "Checking what place out?"

"The Chapel," she said. "For your wedding."

Zach and Becca both laughed. Zach said, "We're a long way from that, ma'am. But thank you for asking."

The woman's smile was bright and her eyes kind through her heavy make-up and strong perfume. "Well, don't wait too long. You're a beautiful couple." She turned to her husband. "Aren't they a beautiful couple, Harvey?"

Harvey smiled and nodded but seemed confused. "I'll get the car," he said and turned toward the crowded center aisle.

The woman laughed and shook her head and shooed him away, then turned back to face Becca and Zach. "Deaf as a post but the only man I've ever loved. Sixty-two years this April since we were married, sixty-five years since we met—wouldn't trade a-one for all of Liz Taylor's diamonds." She laughed to herself at the thought—passing on Liz Taylor's diamonds for Harvey. But she didn't retract the claim. "Don't wait too long," she said then shuffled off after her Harvey.

Yielding Faith

It comes from this:

She alive,

Breathing somewhere,

In view or not,

But that he only know

She is real,

Walking life—

That knowledge alone

Reason enough for him

To have faith,

Faith in a world that,

Having created her,

Must be kind.

### Part II

Hayride

The sun fell behind a low wooded hill and drained away what little warmth had clung to the brittle air of the clear December afternoon. Becca and Zach sat in silence in the cooling car, listening to the engine's metal contract in subtle clicks and absorbing what residual heat lingered in the close space. Zach sat in the passenger seat and watched the side of Becca's beautiful face, her golden hair flowing over her neck and spreading out across the shoulders of her dark blue down vest—that shimmering hair like a calling to some perfect rest, a balm to every ache of longing. He was here at her invitation and prepared to follow her lead wherever it took them; but at the moment her lead held them motionless in the car parked to one side of the church's back lot in the gathering twilight. He wondered what she was thinking about, what held her normally animated features so still.

Across the parking lot, two teens—a boy and a girl—broke free from the clutch of bundled up figures blowing on their hands under the lit portico to the large church's back entrance. This pair raced toward them with their arms outstretched like gliding eagles. Their long, drawn-out shouts of "Bec-ca!" rolled across the empty lot and through the cars laminated glass and padded steel frame.

Becca turned her face toward the swooping teens and laughed. "Duty calls." She faced Zach and smiled. She retrieved a white knit stocking cap and mittens from the backseat and pulled the cap down over her head till it covered her ears, then slid her hands into the matching mittens. "Are you ready for this?"

Zach could laugh now. "I'm just following the leader."

"Stay close," she said, though her voice couldn't have been more relaxed or self-assured. She opened her door and stepped out into the cold dusk.

The two teens reached her simultaneously and, with their hands joined on one side, crashed into Becca and let their momentum wrap their bodies around hers. The two giggled and shrieked into Becca's vest. Becca laughed above the blur of their bodies, wrapped her arm around the girl's neck like a scarf and gave the boy's tow-headed scalp a quick tussle.

"Where've you been?" the girl asked.

"Why'd you park over here?" the boy panted, his words accompanied by frosty breaths.

"To give y'all a chance to run off some of that steam!" Becca shrieked and did a quick twirl with the two still holding onto her and spinning outward from her center.

The boy finally let go and waved toward the far end of the parking lot where a tractor and a wagon were waiting. "Come on, Becca. John has the tractor started and he says he'll only stay out till his toes get froze."

"And he says they're half-froze already," the girl added as she tugged on Becca's near arm.

"You leave John to me—he'll drive us long as we want."

The girl said, "He likes you."

The boy shouted, "Everybody likes Becca," before racing ahead toward the tractor and wagon.

Becca turned to Zach standing on the far side of the car, shrugged in hopeless surrender, then smiled broadly, her face aglow with a light and warmth to rival the gone sun's power, before stumbling along behind the girl's furiously tugging arm.

Zach could only nod agreement and follow in that whirlwind's wake.

They were at Becca's home church on a clear and cold Sunday afternoon a few weeks before Christmas chaperoning a youth-group hayride through the quiet neighborhood streets around the church. Becca was the group's college-aged advisor and had agreed to lead the hayride back early in the fall, before she and Zach had started dating. She could've easily fulfilled this obligation without bringing Zach along, but decided earlier in the week to invite Zach—to give him a break from his reading-period rigors and share with him an important if fading aspect of her BZ life; that is, before Zach.

By the time Zach caught up, Becca was standing beside the tractor tire almost tall as she talking up to a man in his late twenties sitting on the open-air seat with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand on the tire as he leaned toward Becca to hear her above the purr and pop of the Deere's barely muffled two-cylinder engine. From across the parking lot Zach had identified the tractor's make and model from its appearance and distinctive engine noise. His dad once owned the same model, and its widely spaced piston strokes made a singular popping sound while idling. He also recognized from afar that the tractor and wagon were from a "gentleman's" farm, with the bright green and yellow paint of the tractor and smooth-planed boards of the wagon too perfect to be off a working farm with its constant demands on limited resources of time and money.

"Now, Miss Coles, a loop around Wilson and onto Springvale should be trip enough to get everyone froze solid as an ice cube," the tractor man said from beneath his plaid wool cap with the side flaps pulled down over his big ears.

"Mr. Abernathy, I had my heart set on one last ride around Wedgewood before the houses start going up," Becca shouted back over the popping of the tractor.

"Too far, Miss Coles. Give all these young'uns p-neumonia before the holidays and what will their parents say about that?"

Becca laughed. "Mr. Abernathy, these young'uns got God's own furnace burning inside them." She glanced back at Zach and gave him a quick wink before turning to look up at the tractor man again. "I'll be forever in your debt if you would take us through the Wedgewood development."

John shook his head in petulant resignation. "At your service, Miss Coles; at your service."

"Thank you, Mr. Abernathy." She brushed his near hand with her mittened one before turning to Zach and taking his hand to lead him to the wagon.

By then the clutch of youth—fourteen in all—that had been huddled under the portico had meandered across the parking lot in groups of threes and fours and were climbing onto the wagon and staking out spots on the bales of clean straw arranged around the perimeter. Two boys were tossing fistfuls of straw into one girl's long brown hair as she screamed in protest but made no effort to flee their attentions. Another couple—they couldn't have been more than fifteen—were already snuggled together in a corner at the back of the wagon. Random others sat on bales and shivered or stood atop the straw with their arms extended toward the rose-colored sunset.

Zach lifted Becca onto the wagon with his hands holding her hips, then she reached down and pulled him up beside her as he used the wagon's hitch as a step. The two stood at the front of the wagon facing the mix of motion and stillness displayed on the platform that seemed to float above the pavement now almost invisible in the deepening shadows.

Becca raised her free hand above her head, the white mitten catching thin rose-colored light and radiating like a beacon. Almost instantly the kids stopped their rough-housing and babbling and faced her in silence. "Thank you," she said in a firm natural voice that seemed louder and clearer in the crisp twilight with the tractor popping in the background beneath their new perch. "First things first—I trust you've all availed yourselves of the church's facilities, since there will be no facilities available on the hayride."

"Yes, Becca," the kids responded in unison.

"Very good. Now I've asked Mr. Abernathy to take us for a loop around the development at Wedgewood and he has generously agreed. Are you all properly attired for a ride of this duration?"

"Yes, Becca."

Becca let Zach's hand go and did a slow review of the teens arrayed on the bales. They all seemed reasonably dressed for the ride—all in down vests or parkas or thermal sweatshirts, some with gloves, some with scarves and knit caps. She returned to Zach and caught his eye (and his heart) with a subtle smile and nod that only he could see (assuming John wasn't looking their way). She then turned again to her cohort. "This is my friend from school, Zach Sandstrom. He has kindly agreed to assist me in my efforts to keep you rabble-rousers in line. I trust you will treat him with respect and kindness."

"And not throw me off the wagon," Zach added quickly.

Becca turned and playfully punched his shoulder.

Zach feigned losing his balance and stumbling toward the edge of the wagon before righting himself at the last second.

"Only Becca can push Zach off the wagon," one boy shouted.

"No one can push anyone off the wagon," Becca said sternly then added, "Please."

"Yes, Becca," they all responded.

"Anything else before we set out?" Becca asked.

"No, Becca."

"Then let us pray," she said and bowed her head. "Dear God, thank you for this beautiful day and this beautiful night. Please keep us safe on this journey. Amen." She lifted her eyes to the now turquoise western horizon before facing John and saying, "Mr. Abernathy, we are at your disposal."

John pulled back on the hand-controlled accelerator. Small flames leapt from the silver muffler pointed toward the emerging stars. The popping of the cylinders sped up and blurred into a single constant roar. John eased the clutch out and the tractor lurched forward, towing the wagon behind. Becca and Zach, steadying each other against the sway and creak of the wagon, took short steps across the length of the wagon before turning and sitting clumsily on an open spot in the bales at the middle of the back, the prime seat clearly saved for them by Becca's adoring charges. At first Becca left a space of several inches between her leg and Zach's but gradually closed that gap over several minutes till her jeans were touching his, their hips and shoulders soon pressed tight. They swayed as one from side to side, forward then back, with the gentle rocking of the wagon.

Once the ride was underway, Becca felt no further need to address the group but simply watched them with a caring attention that was no less alert to their needs for its natural ease. She knew all of them well, had been a group member with the older ones before graduating and going away to college, and had gotten to know the younger kids while chaperoning two outings last summer. She wasn't an ardent church-goer, but she loved these kids and enjoyed helping them through the challenges of adolescence. In return, each of them would've listed Becca as the first older person they would call on in a time of personal need. Zach saw all this in under five minutes of observation; further, he knew Becca had no idea how much she meant to these kids—which was exactly why she meant so much to them.

As they left the church parking lot and entered the quiet residential street, John switched on the tractor's headlights and flashers, sending an arc of white light before the tractor, flashing orange around the tractor and its driver, and flashing red directed back toward the bales and the wagon and its passengers. The kids used this humble event as an excuse to release a loud cheer, then one of them started singing "Jingle Bells" and soon all seventeen riders (even curmudgeonly John) were singing at the top of their lungs out into the dimming evening. Porch lights flickered on as they rolled along the street, and a few hardy souls stepped outside their doorways and cheered or waved or sang along.

A middle-aged woman in sweatpants and a housecoat jogged down off her porch and out to the road and handed one of the boys a large pottery cookie jar loaded with cookies. "Merry Christmas," she shouted as the wagon rolled down the street.

Becca turned and waved. "Thank you, Mrs. Johnson."

All the kids paused in their singing and echoed, "Thank you, Mrs. Johnson!"

Becca shouted to the fading figure. "I'll leave the cookie jar at the church."

Mrs. Johnson's reply, if there was one, was lost beneath the tractor's roar and the playful hubbub of singing and shouting.

A half-mile farther down the road, past several inviting but short cul-de-sac turn-offs and after the carol singing had progressed from "Jingle Bells" through "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Deck the Halls," John turned the tractor and wagon into a freshly paved but deserted street labeled as Wedgewood by a lit plywood sign, the fanciful script letters in Wedgewood blue on a white background. The street was fully paved, the traffic lines painted, the curbs and gutters installed, the sidewalks and driveway turnouts poured; but there were no houses. For the first quarter mile, streetlights lit their way and shined down on wooden signs in front of open treeless lots—future home of the Bernard family, the Robertsons, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Leslie. For some unknown reason, the kids switched from secular carols to sacred ones after they'd turned into the unoccupied development; and they lowered their voices from their prior shouting to offer high-pitched but melodious versions of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Away in the Manger," as if the sacred songs were somehow more appropriate for these deserted environs, might better appeal to the spirits of farmers past still trapped in the torn up soil, or of families future implied in the signs' hope and promise.

The streetlights ended, the last one's glow following them into the night like a trailing puppy too young and short-legged to keep up; then they rode on into the dark, their path lit only by the tractor's headlights and the orange and red flashers. This limited light revealed unadorned poles reaching to the night sky, signposts sunk in the ground but no owners yet committed, sidewalks and driveway turnouts formed but not yet poured. The unfamiliar third verse of "Away in the Manger" dwindled away along with the streetlight, and the entourage continued in a deafening silence marked only by the tractor's unbroken roar. In this new and surreal realm of darkness and cold and red flashing light, a blonde girl with her face and head wrapped in a long knit scarf that covered all but her eyes broke free from a clutch of girls at the head of the wagon and rushed to the back and sat beside Becca opposite Zach. She leaned her head into Becca's chest and Becca pulled her close with her free arm. Then another of the younger kids, a boy this time, drifted back from his band of mates and sat at Becca's feet with his legs crossed on the hard oak boards of the wagon's platform. Becca took her knit cap off and placed it on the boy's bare, crew-cut head.

She said to Zach in a low voice barely audible above the tractor, "This is Daphne," nodding toward the scarf-wrapped child. "And this is Kendall," she added while touching the boy's shoulder. "They're both first-year members of our Youth Group."

Zach nodded. "The pleasure is all mine."

Neither child looked at him, but Kendall said to the night, "Is it O.K. if we share Becca with you?"

"More like—can I share her with you?"

Becca laughed. "Plenty of me to go around." She pulled the two youngsters closer—to warm them, to warm her.

Zach found a gap between her sweatshirt sleeve and her mitten and lightly brushed her wrist, the skin warm and incredibly soft.

As they pushed farther into the development, the combination of deepening dark and diminishing signs of progress made it seem to Zach that they were going back in time. He leaned over and whispered this thought into Becca's ear, then added, "If we go far enough, I wouldn't be surprised to catch a glimpse of a brontosaurus munching swamp grass at the fringe of the tractor's lights."

Becca laughed. "Be a mighty cold brontosaurus."

"A wooly mammoth then, with a stalking long-toothed tiger."

"And Neanderthals with clubs."

"We can hope."

Becca's smile faded. "But don't come back here next year."

"Don't worry; I won't. Probably couldn't find it even if I wanted to."

"What—no desire to settle in Pleasantville with a wife and two-point-five kids?"

Zach grinned. "Got all the family I need right here."

Becca nodded. "Then let's never leave."

"O.K. by me, but I'm guessing your tractor man might have something to say about that."

As if on cue, the rolling ensemble ground to a slow halt where the pavement ended and switched to gravel. The tractor's roar dwindled to its earlier purr and pop. John stood amidst his orange flashing and faced the wagon from his lofty perch, looking all the world like a backwoods politician about to deliver a stump speech. "Froze enough yet, Miss Coles?" he intoned.

Becca remained seated amongst her embracing fold. "Ask them," she said and waved her free hand over the attentive teens.

"Farther," they all shouted.

"The road turns to gravel," John pleaded.

"Farther," the kids shouted again.

"I believe you have your answer, Mr. Abernathy," Becca said.

John shook his head and mumbled something about needing a weather canopy before sitting and putting the old tractor in low gear for its crawl over the rougher gravel trail.

Before he revved the engine and let the clutch out, Becca suggested, "Let us all thank Mr. Abernathy for his patience and support."

The oldest boy, a high-school senior named Rick with long dark hair and thin sideburns, jumped atop one of the bales and shouted, "Three cheers for Mr. Abernathy."

Everyone joined in—"Hip-hip-hooray. Hip-hip-hooray. Hip-hip-hooray."

The tractor man took the tractor out of gear, faced them again, took off his cap, and gave a deep bow. He then returned to his task of guiding them deeper into the development, farther back in time.

With their progress slowed to a crawl and the wagon swinging from side to side and rocking in the ruts, their entourage donned an aspect of vulnerability and the full night a kind of foreboding couched in its star-studded, chill indifference. They might've been pilgrims in route to a Himalayan monastery or colonists buried in the hold of a frigate on the Atlantic blank except for the pungent smell of the tractor's exhaust and the silhouettes of trees now etched against the sky to either side. Even the older youth, in the full gale of their hormonal firestorms, fell silent and still in mute testament to the solemnity of the moment and the setting. The tractor pushed on into the dark. Pine trees closed in from either side, blocking the stars, shading what little natural light pressed down from above. Zach summoned in his mind part of the Milton he'd memorized for a forthcoming exam:

The World was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:

They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow,

Through Eden made their solitary way.

Then the trees suddenly parted and the pilgrim train entered a large clearing with nothing but sky above. John directed the train to the middle of the broad clearing and stopped, powered the engine down, then turned it off. The sudden stillness was almost too much to bear, though the lights kept flashing, winking back in colors to the white steady light of the stars.

"End of the road, Miss Coles," John said in a voice volume high as if still in competition with the tractor's motor.

"So I see. Where are we, Mr. Abernathy?"

"Future clubhouse and pool, Miss Coles, to be built once the development is over fifty percent sold."

"And we just passed through—?"

"Golf course, Miss Coles—cart path between the ninth and eighteenth fairways, I believe."

"To be built when?"

"Same time as the clubhouse, Miss Coles—fifty percent sold."

"And when might that be?"

"Soon—my mother is in real estate and she says they passed forty percent before Thanksgiving."

"So this is the last Christmas it'll be wild here."

"Hardly wild, Miss Coles. But it'll be getting a lot tamer and soon."

"Thank you, Mr. Abernathy." Becca stood slowly, releasing Zach's hand and easing from under Daphne and around Kendall. "Can we kill the lights for a minute, Mr. Abernathy?"

John switched off the tractor's lights and flashers and it was instantly and massively black. Several of the youth gasped and one girl shrieked then shouted, "Michael!" Daphne slid across the open bale and pressed up against Zach's warm side.

After a minute, Zach's eyes adjusted to the dark and he could see the outlines of the kids seated on the bales, the silhouette of John on his tractor seat, and the head and shoulders of Becca standing in the middle of the wagon and making a slow 360-degree turn in the dark, taking in either the imperiled woods or her timid charges or both, it was impossible to say which. Then she stopped her slow spin with her face, aglow from some hidden light, pointed directly at Zach. "I don't know what presents y'all will receive this Christmas," she said in a quiet reverent voice. "But I doubt any of you will receive a gift more special than this pause in this place." She stood at their center a moment, as if contemplating saying more; then she walked in silence with short cautious steps to the back of the wagon, lifted Kendall to a seat next to Daphne, and sat at the feet of the three lined up on that bale. She tilted her head back onto Daphne's knees to take in fully the heavenly panorama unfurled above.

Then Kendall began in an unwavering soprano—Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

The rest of the pilgrim voices soon chimed in.

Zach's far hand found its dark path to the cool cheek of his Christmas gift, more perfect than this Eden on this perfect night.

The Nutcracker

Zach followed a half-stride behind Becca down the long left-center aisle of the grand old auditorium. She kept pausing to wave to some familiar face or couple already seated in the nearly full theater. Zach would stop every time she stopped, his hand pressed lightly to the waist of her camelhair coat, and nod in the direction of her wave. He was never quite sure who she was waving to, as everyone in the auditorium seemed to be looking in their direction and smiling. Normally he was delighted to be seen with Becca in public, proud to show her off. But on this occasion he felt uncomfortable, sensing that everyone was checking him out, not her, and evaluating whether he was a worthy escort for this local belle. He stood tall and tried to strike a pose between amiable and aloof, but secretly hoped they'd soon be at the high-dollar seats Becca had secured through family connections.

They were in Memorial Auditorium in Becca's hometown attending a weekend production of The Nutcracker performed by the Carolina Ballet, an annual holiday gala for the region in general, and especially for the upper middle-class society that Becca grew up in. Becca'd invited Zach several weeks earlier and made it clear that it was an important occasion. Zach was dressed in a dark suit and Becca wore a black knee-length, sleeveless evening dress under her open coat. Everyone in the auditorium, including the children, was dressed in their holiday finest.

They finally made it to their row and slid past numerous seated patrons to their seats near the middle. Zach helped Becca slide her coat off. He draped it over his right arm as she slowly, confidently surveyed the crowd in all directions. She was stunning in her black dress, the color highlighting her perfect fair skin and her thick blond hair that she'd left loose this night and flowed halfway down her back. She knew everyone was looking at her but didn't give off the least sign of haughtiness or conceit. Her welcoming smile and relaxed manner was totally disarming. She was so comfortable in her own skin that she made all those around her feel comfortable in theirs. Zach could've happily watched her all night except he felt that as the crowd was watching her, they were also watching him. And as good as she made him feel about himself, this unfamiliar crowd more than countered that confidence. He didn't know what they were looking for in him, didn't know what they saw; this uncertainty made him feel uncharacteristically insecure. So he finally sat down and draped her coat across his knees. He would've rather draped it over his head, but that would've caused even more attention. So he shrank into his cushioned rocking seat and hoped Becca's shine blinded them to his awkwardness.

Becca soon sat and took his near hand and turned those eyes on him. "Thanks for coming, Zach," she said firmly but in a voice that only he could hear. "I wanted you to see my world." She looked over his shoulder at the rows upon rows of patrons receding into the dimness beneath the double balcony. "And I wanted them to see you."

"Why?" By this time he was more curious than peeved.

"Because you're the cutest guy in the whole auditorium." Her eyes settled on his and remained there.

From that moment, Zach no longer cared about the thousands of eyes critiquing him. Far as he was concerned, the rest of the crowd ceased to exist.

The lights in the hall flickered off and on, off and on. Spectators that were still standing scurried to their seats. The murmur in the hall quickly faded to silence. Then the lights went out. After a long and pregnant pause, the curtains opened on a scene of Christmas gaiety and excited preparations as dancers ran back and forth carrying tree ornaments and candles and presents and garland to place on and under and around a tall Christmas tree at the center of the stage. The sheer energy and enthusiasm and number of dancers in coordinated mayhem combined with the array of colors and lights and costumes captivated the audience, which responded with a mixture of gasps of wonder and cheers of joy. The show had begun.

Zach had seen excerpts of the ballet over the years and was familiar with the more famous pieces of Tchaicovsky's accompanying music, but he'd never sat through an entire performance. Earlier in the week, he'd borrowed an audio tape of the ballet's music from Barton and read the notes on the ballet that came with the tape, so he was somewhat familiar with the storyline. He was prepared to dismiss the whole performance as a children's play performed for and largely by children. And the first couple scenes, while dazzling in their combination of endless motion and myriad colors, seemed to bear out his assumptions—the dancing wasn't dancing at all but running and rough-housing, and the subsequent march and the party goers response to it seemed clichéd.

Then the real story began, and the star of the show emerged. The petite blond dancer that played the part of the child Clara was, even to Zach's untrained eye, far and away the best dancer on the stage. Further, as the dramatic action unfolded—with the toymaker showing his opulent wares but leaving only a modest wooden nutcracker in the shape of a man, a toy that Clara grew attached to despite, or perhaps because of, its humble nature, only to have it broken by her jealous brother Fritz—Clara was allowed to become not only the central dancer of the scene but the narrative center as well, rivaling even the eventual transformation of the restored nutcracker into the dashing Prince. Zach assumed this was a directorial choice, as whoever had put this production together identified his greatest performer and used her to elevate the whole show. Throughout the fantastic scenes that followed in Act One—gingerbread soldiers succumbing to mice legions; tin soldiers and dolls thrown into the breach; the wounded nutcracker, saved by Clara, then slaying the Mouse King; and the Act's closing scene of the nutcracker become Prince dancing with Clara through dancing silver snowflakes—Zach's eyes never left Clara. He had discovered the beating heart of the ballet.

After the curtain fell on Act One to great cheers, Zach and Becca stayed in their seats as children and their parents and grandparents headed for the aisles leading to the restrooms and snack bars in the lobby. After an initial burst of noise and commotion, the hall became fairly quiet and relatively empty with so many patrons outside.

"So the toymaker is God?" Becca asked.

"Or human ingenuity," Zach said, being more contrarian than convinced.

"And the Nutcracker?"

"Resourcefulness? Heroism? I don't know."

"Then where does the life come from?"

He loved Becca's inquiries. He loved everything about her; but at just that moment, he loved her passionate curiosity most of all. "Think about it, Becca. The toymaker makes the toys, but they're just wood and cloth and horsehair—whether in the real world or the fantastic world. He's powerless to bring them to life."

"Clara? A child?"

"Love—the universal life-giving force, child or adult."

Becca's look of surprise and incredulity slowly transformed into an indulgent grin. "Zachary Taylor, you are the world's worst romantic."

"Or best."

"The best." She leaned over and gave him a chaste kiss on the forehead—her helpless romantic.

If he hadn't already been brought to life by this princess, that kiss would've done it. As it was, that touch simply cemented him in surrender to the life-giving force of this divine child.

"Becca, that'll get you sent to the principal's office," a stranger's voice said from nearby.

Zach looked past Becca to a dark-haired beauty in a full-length cobalt-blue satin gown held in place by silver-sequined spaghetti straps over her lily-white shoulders. She winked suggestively at Zach before Becca had a chance to turn around.

"Janice Oldham," Becca said in surprise. She stood and leaned over and gave the dark-haired girl a brief hug.

"Hey, Girlfriend. Long time, no see. Now I know why." She gazed over Becca's shoulder at Zach.

Becca shook her head. "Same old Janice." She turned and introduced Zach to Janice, "A friend from high school."

"Now going to State—go Pack," Janice said with a little shimmy of her hips.

Zach stood and shook Janice's hand lightly. "Nice to meet you Janice now of State."

Janice said, "Likewise, of that I'm sure."

Zach tried to look interested as Becca and Janice exchanged information about past acquaintances, but he couldn't help feeling like an outsider—which, of course, he was. Normally, such a feeling would not bother him—Zach was an outsider in almost any circle he found himself in. He actually enjoyed the condition, had cultivated the persona. But this time he was an outsider in the world Becca came from and enjoyed, if not fully revered. And from this vantage point, it was hard seeing himself ever joining that world, or Becca ever leaving it. Thus, in this particular instance, being an outsider was a very big problem.

Janice extended her hand again to Zach, and held his hand for some seconds longer than would be considered polite. She leaned forward and whispered (knowing Becca could hear), "If you ever get tired of Becca, come by State."

Zach nodded. "I'll take it under advisement."

Janice laughed a wicked laugh, touched Becca's shoulder, and said, "Later, Girlfriend," before heading back down the row now refilling with the returning audience.

Becca faced Zach. "One of my shier friends."

"Regular wallflower."

They both laughed, sat down, and waited for the show to resume.

The second act, despite its elaborate choreography—including the signature Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy—and inclusion of all the familiar orchestral pieces, seemed anticlimactic to Zach, as Clara took on the role of observer, rather than dancer and actor, in the Land of Sweets. Zach quickly grew bored with these elaborate fantasies danced mostly by children. He was wrenched out of his torpor by the haunting denouement, as Clara was suddenly left alone in the original parlor beside the unlit tree holding the wooden nutcracker in the moments before dawn, bereft of her Prince and his fantastic world, awaiting her return to everyday life. Set against nearly two hours of non-stop bright lights, constant movement, and fast-paced action, this momentary pause before the curtain dropped was powerful and poignant. As the entire audience leapt to their feet in cheers and applause following the curtain drop, Zach remained glued to his seat, briefly stunned by the image of the young Clara trying to make sense of what had just happened to her.

He finally stood beside Becca and added his applause. He felt an odd surge of relief and hope as the smiling woman that had danced as Clara was presented to the audience, generating the loudest cheers and applause of any of the performers. Zach was glad to see her performance properly recognized by the crowd, and even more grateful to be reminded that Clara's pause on the threshold of grinding reality was not the final word—for her or him. It was, after all, just a performance, right?

He posed that question to Becca as she drove them through the deserted backstreets of the city on a short cut to her parents' house, where he'd left his truck parked. "It was just a performance, right?"

She laughed. "The ballet or the audience?"

Zach hadn't thought about that. Maybe the ballet, Clara's story, was the transcendent reality, the promise; and the crowd—the affluent and highly structured society that opened the ballet and the affluent and highly structured society watching the ballet—was the passing and corrupt illusion. "When did you learn that?"

"Zach, I grew up in that world. It's one continuous performance—costuming, make-up, dialogue, props, stage design. If you took away the performance, nobody would know what to do."

"And you're O.K. with that?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'O.K.' I've never tried to fight it. I'd only lose and end up hurting a lot of people in the process. Besides, they're my family—you accept family as they are. But you notice I don't spend an awful lot of time here. I'd rather be in Shefford. I'd rather be with you."

"An austere world compared to all that opulence."

"Most of that's fluff, Zach, as you well know. And your world has a different kind of richness, as you also know."

"How'd you get so smart?"

"A good teacher."

She turned into the cul-de-sac, switched off the headlights, and coasted to a stop behind Zach's truck parked along the curb. The front-porch light of her parents' house was on; otherwise, the rest of their house and the other houses on the street were all dark. They sat unmoving and unspeaking in the car, letting the new darkness and the new stillness settle over them.

Becca turned toward Zach. "Thanks for coming tonight. I know it wasn't easy for you."

"It was O.K. You took care of me. I hope I didn't cramp your style."

"You didn't cramp my style, Zach." She leaned across the car's console, put her arm around his neck, and pulled his face to her. Their mouths locked together and they kissed for the longest time, breathing back and forth the air they needed.

Eyes closed, Zach's hand found Becca's hair and brushed slowly over its full rich length in repeated invisible passes, seeing the map of his future through his fingertips, through his lips, through the air of her lungs giving him life. For him at that moment, there was no gap between illusion and reality, no tension between what he would wish and what he could have. It all resided in the flesh and soul of this girl now joined to him, this one who had found him wandering out there in the darkness and brought him to this home.

Somewhere in the cul-de-sac, a dog barked twice then was silent. When they opened their eyes, they saw the spotlights of the house behind them glaring. Becca laughed. "Can't even make out in private in my world."

Zach said, "Then let's go make out in mine."

Becca leaned forward and gave him a brief kiss then said, "Later."

She walked him to his truck then went on to the beacon of that front-porch bulb. She stood in that pool of light and waved as he drove past on his way to the main road. He waved back then drove on into the night, his long ride home.

Simple Gesture Bearing Life

All thoughts empty into this—you pausing before your door, turning, waving as I swing the car around and leave. Waiting, waiting that instant, waiting for me.

It's a gesture as natural to you as breathing, warm blood through veins, heartbeat. You wouldn't guess, couldn't guess, the meaning it holds for me—burning life into cold lungs, gifts offered freely, open hands palm up, touching, touching across yards, miles, mere skin bearing simple heat, kindness, generosity.

It is now, days later or years, you standing and waving but only memory and scratches on paper. You read my words, look up from the page, wonder at my response, think the gesture but simple courtesy, common as falling leaves in autumn. I forgive you that but tell you this—thank God you've never been alone; trust me as one who has stood in that void and knows saving light when offered, you being that light, light people spend long years, whole lives, searching and not finding, dying famished. You spare me that end, and I thank you, again.

Tall trees bend before humble gods—I bow before you, ask only to live within the comfortable radiance of your life.

License Photo

Zach woke with his head on Becca's bare stomach. He heard the faint gurgle of life rising up from her intestines, and the deeper pulse of her heart resounding through her torso. He looked up and saw her face cushioned on the two pillows at the head of the bed. She had on one of his old shirts as a nightshirt, but it was fully unbuttoned and her breasts rose and fell with each gentle breath. He felt her cotton panties against his neck, and his arm extended down the full length of her left leg. His fingers brushed the arch of her foot. He knew that if he moved those fingers just a little bit, her body would respond instantly—first with a shiver, then with a semi-conscious giggle, then with lots of other good and welcome gifts to be discovered and explored. Before initiating this cycle of sharing, Zach found his watch with his free hand and checked the time.

It was 8:30 AM and their French Novels final was at 9.

Zach sat up quickly. He checked the alarm clock on the desk. The alarm was switched off. Had he forgotten to set it? They'd been studying together late last night (really, early this morning), first in the living room, then in bed. Then other needs had made themselves known, and been addressed. Had he forgotten to set the alarm? He couldn't remember. Maybe he'd set it and turned it off without waking. It didn't matter. It was now 8:32 and their test was at 9.

He reached up and shook Becca's shoulder lightly.

She opened her eyes slowly then rolled her face into the pillows.

"Becca, it's 8:30!" he said in a sharp whisper.

She sat up suddenly. "It's what?"

Zach checked his watch. "8:33."

Becca threw off the bedcovers and raced into the bathroom, Zach's shirt flying out behind her like a cape.

When she emerged from the bathroom four minutes later, Zach was already fully dressed. He slipped into the bathroom and completed his essential hygiene and bodily functions. When he emerged, Becca was tying her shoes while sitting on his desk chair. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. She had on a flannel shirt and jeans. She didn't have any make-up on, but she rarely wore make-up. She really looked quite lovely.

Zach walked over and knelt on the carpet beside her. "Sorry, Bec. I don't know what happened with the alarm—if I didn't turn it on, or if I turned it off without waking."

She finished tying her shoes, sat back in the chair, and took a deep breath. Then she looked at him. "If I flunk, will you take the class again with me?"

Zach leaned forward and hugged her with all his strength. "I love you," he said into her shirt. Then he stood. "Remember—Stendahl, Julian Sorel; Flaubert, Charles and Rodolphe; Hugo, Jean Valjean." He grabbed an unopened box of Girl Scout cookies as they passed through the kitchen on their way to the parking lot.

They slid almost silently into the classroom just as their Romance Studies professor was starting to close the door. This bald, hawk-nosed Count of Stoicism and Understatement shook his head once and released the faintest of grins as the two of them flew past and took their seats.

After completing their exams (Zach finished first and waited in the lobby downstairs, Becca joined him about five minutes later), they walked across the Main Quad to the Shake Shoppe in the basement of the Student Union for a late breakfast, early lunch of chili dogs, fries, and chocolate milkshakes. It was the last day of finals, the last day of term prior to the long holiday break; and the campus was nearly empty. It was also the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year; and the gray skies, damp cold air, and cutting wind reminded them of this astronomical nadir as they scurried across the Quad and down the stone stairs and into the close warmth of the Shake Shoppe. They ordered their meals from Valera, one of the friendly and ageless keepers of this student emporium, then sat down with their food at a table along the wall, under a high narrow window that looked out on the Quad turf above and the gray sky beyond. They were the only customers in the Shoppe.

"How'd you do?" Zach asked.

Becca shrugged. "It's done," she said with an ironic chuckle.

"Yeah, it's done. So what now?"

"For me? Home to a buffet dinner tonight then family commitments far out as this eye can see—past Christmas, anyway. It's kind of hard for me to even think about at the moment."

"You'll have fun once you're there."

"I'm sure. I love everything about Christmas. But it'll be different this year."

"How?"

"I'll be missing you."

Zach nodded. "We'll survive."

"I hope. I'm more worried about you. It doesn't seem right to be alone over Christmas."

"I won't be alone the whole time. Larry and Celine have invited me for dinner tomorrow night; I'll spend some time with Barton. It'll be fine. I'm actually looking forward to the solitude."

"Tell me again why you're not going home to see your family?"

"I don't know, Becca. It just doesn't feel right. I haven't been home at Christmas for three years. And now with the separation and all that's going on, I just don't want to deal with the questions. The spoken ones I could probably handle; it's all the unspoken questions, the whispered comments and indulgent looks, that would drive me crazy."

Becca laughed. "I know a little about those looks—the raised eyebrows, the pursed lips, and the knowing grins." Becca seamlessly transformed her lovely youthful face into that of a judgmental old aunt, complete with cocked eyebrow, pinched lips, and indulgent grin.

Zach threw his arms up in surrender. "I've seen enough. No more, please."

Becca smiled. "I guess I have a higher tolerance for that kind of stuff than you."

"Or are at a different place in your life."

"Maybe so, but it's hard for me to see a time when I wouldn't be with my family over Christmas if I were free to be there."

Zach shrugged. "Maybe we are different in that way. So what about today?"

"I've got a few hours before I need to leave. I want to spend them with you."

"Want to take me to the Driver's License Bureau? I've got to get this provisional license made permanent."

"Becca's Taxi at your service."

They finished their meals, discarded their paper plates, cups, and trays, and headed back up the stairs and out into whatever waning light this shortest day of the year had left to offer.

The Driver's License Bureau was on the other side of town, a twenty-minute ride through inner-city streets with countless turns and confusing intersections. Becca said she knew the way, and in any case was far more familiar with the town than Zach; so he left the driving and navigation to her and closed his eyes and let his mind drift. It didn't drift far.

By any measure, Zach's life was in a heightened state of transition and upheaval, some might even say chaos. He was pursuing a new major at a new school in a new town in a new section of the country, practically a foreign land. He was in a deep and complex relationship with his faculty advisor and writing mentor, and had many other new friendships and academic relationships, each with its own set of demands and rewards. He was writing a first novel, short stories, poems, essays, and several journals, taking an expanded load of courses, all with heavy reading requirements, and working three part-time jobs. Oh, and yes, he was in the middle of the most intense love affair of his life, a love that had seized him months earlier, drawn him into its swirling vortex, and not let him touch ground since.

And it was into the heart of this love that his mind, free to roam, drifted now. More specifically, it was into the heart of this girl driving beside him—the source of this love from the start, before she was the object of this love—that his drifting mind and spirit and soul descended now. The storms of his world, even the tempests of this love, raged out there somewhere. But inside here, within the generous and kind heart of this beautiful and abundantly graceful girl, in this time-bound space that was somehow outside of time and space—in here, it was completely calm; in here was perfect consolation, eternal life.

Becca slowed the car and turned, and they lurched back and forth across several deep potholes. Zach opened his eyes on the parking lot of the Driver's License Bureau. They were in a rough section of town, and the parking lot and building were surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. Zach wondered who in their right mind (or even in their wrong mind) would try to break into this facility, a division of the State Highway Patrol? He was reminded yet again that he was in a different land, with a different set of rules and standards. Becca pulled into an open space not far from the entrance to the modular building and switched off the car.

"Should I wait out here?"

Zach looked around. "Might not be safe." He was only half-joking. "Besides, it's too cold out here. Come wait in the warmth. It shouldn't take long."

Becca nodded, locked the car, and walked with him up the steps and into the building.

The large open room they entered directly from the outside was divided into three spaces. The front section had chairs lined up against two walls and a receptionist's desk with a highway patrol officer behind it to one side near the door. Beyond a low wooden railing was an area with a double row of wooden chairs with attached right-hand writing desks (identical to the desks they'd used earlier in the day while taking their French Novels final). Beyond this testing area, at the far end of the room, were three desks manned by Patrol examiners taking information, doing eye exams, and preparing license documents. Hanging on the far wall was a red screen with a camera in front of it for taking license photographs. Zach turned to the receptionist and Becca took a seat in one of the wooden chairs along the near wall.

After checking his provisional license and verifying his identification through his student ID card, the receptionist sent him back to the desk of the last examiner in the row. There a stern, heavy-set woman with close-cropped dark hair flecked with gray shot a series of rapid-fire one-word questions at him like bullets at a firing range. Birth?—Race?—Sex?—Height?—Eyes?—Hair? The fact that some of the answers were self-evident didn't seem to interest her. She wanted the answers from him, and she wanted them fast. He offered a qualified answer to the question about his height—some measurings listed him at six-four, some at six-five. She frowned and growled, "One or the other," as if she might cuff him and throw him in the holding tank if he didn't give her the correct response and soon. "Six-four," he said.

She typed all his answers onto his license card, then stood and silently pointed him toward the screen hanging on the wall. Zach walked over there and stood in front of the screen, half-wondering if the camera might transform into a machine gun under the hands of this drill sergeant. The examiner walked behind the camera, inserted Zach's license card, then cursed and walked back behind her desk without a word to Zach. He remained standing in front of the screen while she rooted through her drawers.

Then he looked up and saw Becca, still seated in the same chair against the wall at the far end of the room, reading a newspaper someone had left behind. He was almost surprised to see her there—in this room, in his life. His first response was one of bottomless thanks, for whatever unlikely sequence of events and good fortune had placed her in his life. But his thanks quickly gave way to pure joy at this profound gift from above—her and their love, his now and forever, come what may.

The examiner barked, "At the camera!"

He lowered his gaze about two degrees and the camera's strobe flashed.

Zach threaded his way back past the examiners' desks and the testing area and through the opening in the low wood railing with his new laminated license in his hand.

Becca stood at his approach and said, "O.K., let me see it."

Zach handed her his license. He'd not even looked at it yet.

"Zach, you're adorable!" Becca exclaimed. "You're glowing. Nobody glows in their license photo!"

Zach took the license back and looked. Sure enough—he was glowing. It was the happiest photo ever taken of him, and for good reason—this was the happiest he'd ever been. He well knew the reason why, and he'd do his best to communicate that knowledge to her from this moment forward.

That Which Touches

Light falls from above to define the angle where your shoulder meets your neck, the cool skin fresh across ten feet of stale air. If you turned, you'd see the gaze of stark wonder I lay against your back, blind eyes searching clue to your mystery.

Looking now, perhaps my answer lies in your skin, couched in the smooth exterior of your body, that layer of cells which touches—touches air, cloth, people. The possibility seems viable enough. I've searched the halls of psyche and returned dry, no answer apparent. Staring at you in the half-light of morning, I need search no further—the surface texture of pale skin is answer enough, speaks of life and substance beyond words, a healthy alternative to the endless love musings that invariably circle on themselves in futile spiral inward. I'm satisfied with my discovery, even relieved—answer at last, the simplest possible answer: love is where we touch, skin to skin.

You turn to face me, have sensed my gaze all along but waited it out—another gift. You find my eyes and grasp the love they speak. You smile at that, pleased, but don't move to bridge the few yards between us. Exchanged across that gap is whole love, a thing as undeniable as the air we breathe, the sun we praise. Love without touching.

My recent solution crumbles. I'll have to start all over again.

New Year, Old Year

Becca drove from Greensboro, where she was spending the holiday break with her family, to Zach's apartment to spend New Year's Eve and Day with him. She'd told her parents she'd be spending the time with "a friend." That they'd not asked for further details indicated that they knew which friend was her destination. She was grateful to them for granting her privacy and freedom. Though she was twenty-one and ostensibly living on her own at school, she was still very close to and dependent on her family. The process of gradually establishing independence was a tricky one, with a long history of messy failures among her peers. Becca took pride in the fact that, so far at least, she and her parents had negotiated this perilous transition with no blow-ups or confrontations and few awkwardnesses. Today was one of those awkwardnesses—she felt guilty about telling only a half-truth—but it had been handled with smiling faces and a wink toward acceptance if not outright approval of her choice.

Now her older sister Sarah was another matter entirely. Becca told Sarah everything; and Sarah freely and liberally dispensed advice, as older sisters are wont to do. But Sarah's advice when it came to boys and sexual relationships was tempered by the recent history of her unintended pregnancy and the resulting marriage to the father of the child. She was currently estranged from her husband and living with her parents while completing school. The product of that relationship, the ebullient and gregarious year-and-a-half old Katie, was a blessing to their family and the world; but she was also a conspicuous reminder of the permanent cost of a mistake.

So when Becca told Sarah she'd be spending two days with Zach, she gave a fairly neutral reply. "Have fun; be careful."

But Becca thought she wanted more. "Tell me what you really think."

"How do you feel about him?"

"I like him a lot. He makes me feel special."

"You're special to everyone, Bec. It's your gift to the world."

"He makes me feel more special than I've ever felt. He makes me feel like I'm all that matters."

"That bad, huh?"

"I may be falling in love."

"You're already there, Sis. No point in denying the obvious."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"And?"

"You don't want to hear my 'and'."

"Maybe I don't, but tell me anyway."

"Well, for one thing, he's married."

"Separated."

"You don't know anything about him—his family, his background, his goals."

"I do know. He's told me."

"And you know it's true?"

"Zach doesn't lie, not to me."

"You know that?"

"I know that."

"And you think you fit into his world?"

"Sarah, I don't know. I can't look that far into the future. Right now I'm a big part of his world, and he's a big part of mine. How all that plays out is way beyond how far I can see or even think about."

"I told you."

"What?"

"That you wouldn't like what I had to say."

"Maybe not, but thank you anyway."

Sarah leaned over and gave her baby sister a hug. "Have fun; be careful."

Becca mulled over Sarah's words on the hour-long drive from Greensboro to Shefford. She had doubts about how she fit into Zach's world, and he into hers, had had those doubts from the start of their relationship. But her attraction to him, and the white-hot attention and love he'd focused on her, had cancelled or at least buried those doubts under the weight of desire. And now she always wanted to be with him. While at school, she'd drive by his apartment several times a day—sometimes stopping, occasionally leaving notes, usually just coasting by without stopping, half-thrilled, half-ashamed of her schoolgirl antics. She'd never been quite so smitten. She was both enthralled and confused. The words Sarah had said that rang absolutely true were that she wasn't falling in love, she was already there.

Zach looked down from the railing at the end of the second-floor breezeway as she walked from the parking lot to his building. He was dressed in black cargo pants, a white dress shirt with a red micro-stripe, and an open charcoal vest he'd picked up in a flea market. Other than a crisp wave as she got out of the car, he stood above her unmoving, watching her every step as she walked along the sidewalk and around to the stairs. With any other boy (or girl, for that matter), she'd be annoyed that he didn't come down to greet her, or at least meet her halfway. But she'd gotten used to Zach watching her, was in fact thrilled by his earnest attention, knowing that he was not only watching her but adoring her through his watching, filling an empirical need that only she could sate. She knew this intuitively but also because he told her—in spoken words, in written meditations, and in poems. She'd drawn attention all her life, was familiar and comfortable with it; but she'd never experienced this level of attention, both off-the-charts passionate and eloquent. At first she didn't know how to take it, or if she could even bear it. Now she reveled in the gift and craved it when away, even as she sometimes wondered where the bottom was and what it would feel like when they touched it.

When she reached the second floor landing, he took the shopping bag full of gifts and clothes she was carrying, set it to one side, and wrapped her in his long and powerful arms. That embrace was all she'd been thinking about for days; and as she exhaled straight into his shirt, she felt like she was releasing her heart and soul and all parts of her that mattered into him. She'd maybe, barely, been an independent soul these last ten days; she was no longer. She melted in surrender, melted into him.

They exchanged Christmas gifts while seated together on his couch. Both were unexpectedly nervous, like kids on a first date, at this incorporation of an old tradition with all its old rules into their new and unfettered love. Becca gave Zach an expensive pair of basketball shoes (to replace his tattered pair of sneakers leftover from high school) and a paperback of the letters between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Zach gave her a nineteenth-century clothbound edition of Selected Poems of John Keats and a typescript of a long poem he'd written after seeing a high school portrait of her in a scrapbook at her apartment.

For all the forethought that had gone into the selection of these gifts, and the abundant thank yous and smiles that had accompanied their unveiling, the gifts, even the occasion—belated Christmas sharing—seemed a far cry, a distraction, from the world they occupied now. They sat a moment in silence amidst the crumpled wrapping paper and tangled ribbons and open boxes and heartfelt empty gifts. Separated by that clutter, across a space of a few feet in the fading light of an overcast dusk, they simply stared at each other, smiled shyly and tentatively, and shared more in that silent gaze than those presents—all presents: ever given, ever received—could've hoped to transmit.

Then Zach carefully moved his gifts and his wrapping paper to the coffee table. Becca did likewise. And he slid over to her and she leaned back on the couch and he lay on top of her with his arms to either side and they proceeded to exchange the abundant gifts of their abundantly giving bodies, these gifts in perfect synchronization with the world they now inhabited—a world unto themselves, no one else allowed.

Somehow Becca'd ended up on top in the new dark of their fading panting. Her sweater was on the floor but her shirt was still on though unbuttoned and her bra was down around her waist and her jeans clumped around her ankles—well, you get the idea. Zach too was still sort of dressed, but with his clothes in all manner of uncommon placement. They were for the moment actually entangled in their loose attire and not free to separate. That condition became justification (it didn't take much) for another round of sharing, though this one briefer and calmer.

Becca, still on top, had to figure out the sequence of disentanglement in the dark, which she finally did after several false starts and much giggling and laughter from both sides.

She stood beside the couch. Zach could see her but barely. She started to reassemble her clothing when Zach sat up and said, "Let me." And from his seat on the couch and largely by feel but with a little help from dim sight, he dressed Becca. He slid her panties back into place (with just a few opportune kisses). He got her bra oriented in the right direction then slid the cups over her breasts and the straps over her shoulders. He buttoned her blouse—this all by feel and slow. He slid her jeans up over her calves, her knees, her thighs, her hips. He pulled them up to her waist and (after a few more opportune kisses) zipped them up, buttoned them, and buckled her belt. He found her sweater by feeling along the carpet and picked it up. He turned the sweater right side out (a fact he confirmed by feeling for the collar tag), rolled it up, then stood beside her. She raised her arms above her head. He slid the sweater sleeves down over her arms then pulled the neck opening over her head and pulled the sweater down over her chest and stomach. He used his hands to check all her body, starting at her face and neck and working all the way down to her shoes (which had never come off but the right one needed retying). Then he said out of the dark, "My rewrapped present."

"Waiting the next unwrapping."

"That can be done," Zach said, and found unerring her belt buckle.

"Later," Becca said, intercepting his hand. "Now let me try to rewrap you."

She started this effort by kneeling in front of him and locating his pants and underwear twisted around his ankles. She loosed the boxers and raised them to his knees then paused. After a moment, her hands left the boxers at his knees and continued up over the backs of his thighs, gliding gently over his buttocks and stopping on either side of his waist. Holding on there, she then proceeded to express her own form of adoration of him and his body, a gift that could only have been offered in this dense dark, on this dawn of a new year. She'd not planned this offer or even dreamed it. In the midst she wondered if it were only for him or somehow also for her.

Then she finished pulling up his underwear, straightened and buttoned his shirt (much more proficiently than he'd buttoned hers), pulled up, zipped up, and buttoned his pants, found his vest (wedged behind a couch cushion), turned it right side out, slid it over one arm, looped it around his back, then slid it over the other. She reached up, kissed him, and said, "Good as new."

He said, "Much better than that."

She said, "Yeah, me too."

"Ready to celebrate the coming of the new year at The Depot?"

Becca said, "You bet, but have to pee first."

Zach reached out and switched on the floor lamp. The light was briefly blinding, and both closed their eyes. When they finally opened them, they were almost surprised to discover Zach and Becca standing there, dressed as before though with disheveled hair and faces flushed.

The Depot was an early twentieth-century train station on the south side of town that had been converted into a restaurant by Paul Hoffman, a friend of Barton's and an acquaintance of Zach's through Barton. The now unused tracks still ran past the covered loading platform that provided outdoor seating for the restaurant in suitable weather. Two old Pullman dining cars sat on a side spur at the end of the platform, cars that would one day be turned into a fine eastern-European restaurant called the Far East Express. Inside, The Depot retained the station's original craftsman-style elegance and airiness, with polished hardwood floors, exposed roof decking and rafters and planed beams, tall windows on all four walls, and simple square tables widely spaced across the open room. The restaurant had not yet acquired a liquor license (according to Paul, it would be easier to move Mohammed's mountain to North Carolina than push the license application through the byzantine labyrinth of the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Commission), but it did allow "brown bagging," a regional accommodation whereby patrons could bring their own beer or wine in a plain brown bag and the restaurant would provide "set ups"—glasses, ice, and refrigeration as needed—for a nominal charge. Zach and Becca bought a six-pack of German beer at a convenience store they passed on the way to the restaurant and carried the beer into the restaurant in its brown bag tucked under Zach's arm.

By the time they got there, the restaurant was fairly full with the lingering remains of the evening dinner crowd mixing with early arrivals of the New Year's celebration crowd. It was a casual, family-oriented, jeans and flannel shirt kind of place, with patrons of diverse social and ethnic backgrounds and children scurrying around and between tables playing tag. Zach and Becca liked The Depot as a relaxed and inexpensive alternative to some of the finer restaurants in town, the kind of place where they could linger all night without running up a big bill or annoying the hostess. They also enjoyed escaping the students-only aspect of some of the cheaper restaurants and bars near campus. Here, on any given night (including this one), you could find patrons from toddlers (or even babes in arms being quietly nursed at the table) to retirees and grandparents. It was a perfect place to spend New Year's Eve.

The smiling hostess sat them at a table near the center of the room, one of the few tables currently open. It wasn't a private location, but none of the tables in the restaurant were; and at the moment Zach and Becca were comfortable being placed in the middle of this cheerful hubbub, in fact were pleased to be absorbed into this sprawling anonymous family. The hostess left them one-page hand-printed menus and said she'd return with glasses for their "refreshments."

Two five-year-olds—a boy chasing a girl—raced around their table, trailed by a stumbling toddler. The toddler tripped and fell as he passed Becca's chair. She stood and helped the boy back up, brushed off his blue overalls, and gave him a gentle push back toward his mother seated with her arms extended at a neighboring table. The mother nodded thanks as Becca sat back down. Becca laughed. "I've had plenty of practice this week with Katie."

"How is she?" Zach had met Katie twice on visits to Becca's home. He adored the exuberant little girl.

"Lively as ever. You've got to keep your eye on her every minute."

"And her walking?"

"She still falls a lot, mainly because she tries to do too much. She has no fear."

"Better that than the opposite."

"Try telling that to Sarah."

"How's she?"

"Other than school and work and a kid?"

"I can't imagine." In fact, Zach could imagine, had long wanted a child and knew he would make it work if he were ever granted such an opportunity. But he assumed he was unique in this single-mindedness about raising a child while still in school.

"She'll be fine. Sarah's got the grit to match her impulsiveness."

"And her sister?"

"I don't have either, Zach. I'm soft and safe."

"A lot tougher than you think."

"I hope I don't have to find out."

"I'll hope that for you, but life is rarely so gentle."

"So I've seen."

The hostess brought their glasses and a bottle opener for the beer. "Can I put the rest in the fridge?" she asked.

Zach shook his head. "Better at room temperature. But thanks."

Zach opened one bottle and split it between the two glasses. Once the foam had settled he raised his glass. "In thanks for the past year, and hope for the next one."

Becca nodded and clinked her glass against his. "So how was it being alone for Christmas?"

"I was only alone Christmas Eve. I went to Barton's on Christmas Day."

"Still, must've been strange—not your own family or your own traditions."

Zach thought about that. "I don't know that I have any traditions anymore. It's been so long since I was home at Christmas, and I've changed so much, those traditions aren't really mine anymore."

"And no new ones?"

"Not yet. Every year's been different lately."

"Sounds lonely, especially compared to the overdose of family I've had."

"There are worse things than being alone."

Becca nodded, though given her family and her background, she couldn't imagine what those worse things might be.

The waitress stopped by their table and took their orders, with Becca getting the lasagna and a salad, and Zach ordering North Carolina barbecue with fries, slaw, and hushpuppies.

Zach suddenly perked up after the waitress collected their menus and left. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"I'm an uncle!"

"Really?"

"My oldest sister had a little girl—Caroline Noelle born on Christmas Eve."

"That's wonderful, Zach. Congratulations."

"She's my parents' first grandchild. Here I was moping around all alone on Christmas Eve—."

"I knew you were lonely—trying to pretend you weren't. I know you better than that."

Zach smiled—he'd been caught. "Anyway, the phone rings and it's my brother-in-law calling with the news—washed all that loneliness right away."

"A birth will do that."

"So I've heard. So I saw."

Becca raised her glass. "To Caroline Noelle."

"And all new births."

With that good news shared, they were content to sit back and rest in the warm glow of each other's company and mutual understanding, a kind of love quite different from the one they'd immersed themselves in a few hours earlier. They watched the life of their adopted community unfold around them. By now the children and young families were gone along with most of the grandparents and retirees, and grad students and young professionals drifted in to take their places. A middle-aged folk singer—a local favorite—was setting up his modest amplifier and speakers on a platform where the ticket counter used to be. The lights were dimmed in stages and the hostess went around lighting votive candles on the tables and bar counters along the walls. The waitress brought their food and they ate it slowly, savoring each bite and the moment—the relaxed atmosphere, both homey and intimate, and most of all their unspoken union within this informal gathering that had so freely accepted them as an anonymous couple and a part of this spontaneous family.

They were just finishing their food when Paul, the owner, walked out of the kitchen, spotted them, and came over and sat at one of their free chairs backwards, his arms draped over the chair's ladder back. Paul was a short, fortyish New Yorker with a square face, dark hair, and intense eyes. He always looked a bit on edge; he looked especially so now.

"How's it going, Paul?" Zach asked.

"Like hell—chef stormed out on the busiest night of the year, left me holding the bag and slinging the hash."

"What happened?"

"Some guy put his cigarette out in the lasagna and sent it back to the kitchen."

"Not good."

"You ain't kidding. Told Lisa that's what he thought of the food and to take it back to the chef. And she did! I asked Lisa why she didn't just throw that insult in the trash, make up some story about how the chef regretted that he didn't like the lasagna, and be done with it. But no, she takes it back and shows it to Larry. So Larry grabs a cleaver and heads for the dining room. Lucky Big Willy—he's our fry cook—was between Larry and the dining room or we'd probably be dealing with a murder rather than a kitchen without a chef."

"So what'd Larry do?"

"Said 'Fuck this' and stormed out the side door and hasn't been seen or heard from since. So Lisa called me at home just as I was getting ready to sit down in front of the T.V. with a bowl of popcorn and a cold beer. So here I am, finally taking a break after a couple of crazy hours in the kitchen. How was your food?"

"Delicious."

"That's good, that's good. I've worked in enough slop houses to know my way around a stove, but damned if I thought I'd be doing it tonight."

"Buck stops with the owner, I guess."

"Buck stopped before it made its way to my door, but what the hell you going to do? Hi, Becca—good to see you again."

"Hi, Paul. Happy New Year."

"Yeah, Happy New Year to you both. Hope it's better than the last fucking one." He stood up like someone just called to a fire. "Better get back to the kitchen. Enjoy what's left of the evening."

Zach and Becca watched Paul scurry back into the kitchen then burst into laughter. At just that moment, the folksinger did a brief sound check, then introduced himself and started playing the set that would take them all the way to the countdown for the new year.

With the music playing and the lights turned down low and the candles flickering all around and their fellow patrons fading to a soft blur at the fringes, Zach and Becca were free to slide into the realm of their best joined selves, a realm in which they were in public but not of it, simultaneously part of the real world and outside of it. By its very nature, this romantic indulgence defied examination. They slid into this world as one, enjoyed its seductive freedom from obligation as long as allowed, would emerge when forced to. Zach slid his chair close to Becca's and occasionally brushed her hand or cheek or hair. But most of the time they simply sat close together, were united without touching, in their own universe with the rest of the universe—at least to the four walls of the restaurant—slowly revolving around them.

The singer finished his final song one minute before midnight. Then, following an acoustic-guitar version of a drumroll, began his countdown. "Ten-nine-eight." Everyone in the restaurant joined in. "Seven-six-five-four." Zach turned his chair to face Becca. "Three-two-one." Everyone except Zach and Becca jumped up and cheered and embraced. Zach and Becca leaned together while still seated and kissed for long seconds.

When their lips finally parted, Zach said, "Best year of my life."

Becca said, "Just ended."

"With more to follow."

"We hope," she said, with a broad smile full of hope beneath those eyes set in that perfect face that was for Zach not hope at all but realization, in and of itself.

Lying in bed in the dark of the youngest hours of this new year, their bodies fully unwrapped and touching full length, Zach on his back, Becca lying atop him with her head on his chest, both tired but not quite ready for sleep, almost reluctant to surrender the gone year by falling asleep, Becca asked, "How can I live without you?"

"You don't have to."

"I mean away from you, outside your presence?"

"I go with you wherever you go."

"I know. Sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes that's the problem."

Zach brushed her long hair in the dark. He loved the feel of her hair in the dark. If he could touch her hair, then she was there; if she were there, then he was completely content.

Becca continued, speaking into the dark. "I feel so empty when I'm away from you. It's like I cease to exist. All I want to do is get back to you and become alive again."

"I feel exactly the same about you. When I'm not with you, it's like a part of me is missing."

"You're stronger, Zach. You can stand on your own."

"You can too. You'll find that strength. I'll help you."

"You can help with a lot. I don't think you can help with this."

He brushed her hair; he caressed her cheek. Intellectually, he understood what she was saying, saw her dilemma as an unprecedented challenge for her—a challenge he had caused, a challenge he could not solve. But at the moment he was enslaved by his heart; and what his heart knew was that the love of his life was lying full-length along his body, her hair on his fingertips. The absolute joy of that reality swept aside any and all warnings and concerns.

And soon Becca joined him in that joy, releasing her doubts to the night beyond their walls, easing with him into the oblivion of love.

Becca

She tosses this question at the camera—"Am I young or old?"

The answer seems obvious enough—hair like gold (try to touch it—absolute beauty burns like fire) tumbling to her waist; a face, skin, fresh as dew, radiant; lips, eyes that dance, don't fear: what could she be but young, still safe?

But wait, stare back at her awhile, see this—eyes mirroring a depth greater than even she knows, a depth like the sea unrolling, unrolling, unrolling.

Last sun touches

the lone human on the

beach—a woman leaning

over a shell half-

buried in the dark sand

near the water's

edge. She reaches and

runs her fingers along the

ridged white shell but

won't pick it up, won't

even move it. (She knows

she doesn't have the right.)

But maybe through simple

touch she can share in the

knowledge it offers

willingly

to

her

salt fingertips.

The transfer completed

in silence, the sun gone—

she straightens, looks fleetingly

in this direction, turns and

moves on, across white

deserted beach.

She's gone too soon—off

making Spartan dinner (tomato

soup, crackers, cheese) for

herself. Later to lie down

alone on simple cot, think

about the shell till she passes

into safe rest clutching that

which is hers, will always be

only hers.

Pure teeth through parted lips that taunt with ease: her unspoken words are no longer question but statement—"I am here for you if you can hold me. Please try."

The arm on which she leans, her left arm, easily bears her whole weight. She'll raise it, offer it to you, if you ask.

Fixed in Time

From the beginning, Becca wondered what she could give Zach—that is, besides herself, which seemed too simple and easy a gift, however often he declared it was all he wanted or needed from her or the world. He gave her so much—besides his apparently bottomless adoration, he gave her exposure to all sorts of new experiences, new insights, new ways of seeing the world. She wanted to give something back, something to balance his gifts to her. She finally settled on the gift of regional flavor and color, access to uncommon people and out-of-the-way places from the fast-disappearing Old South. She had an interest in these vestiges of a bygone era and had assembled a sizable list of such opportunities. So she'd share them with Zach, for use in his life and writing.

They were nearing the end of the holiday break, with classes scheduled to start the following Monday. Barton had asked Zach to go to Williamsburg and Jamestown with him the last weekend of Break, so he'd be away then. Becca, bored at home and longing to see Zach before he disappeared for the weekend, called early in the week and suggested they take a day-trip to the folk potteries in Moore and Randolph counties, about a two-hour drive southwest of Shefford. Zach—bored himself despite, or because of, a heavy self-imposed workload of reading and writing, and always missing Becca if she wasn't beside him—was thrilled at the idea and suggested she come the night before for dinner—and breakfast the next morning, and dinner after the outing, and breakfast the next morning (and maybe dinner that third night and breakfast the next morning before he had to head off with Barton).

Becca laughed on the other end of the line. "Zachary Taylor, if I didn't know better, I'd say you miss me."

"What gave you that idea?"

"Just a wild guess."

"Well, should I plan dinner for two?"

"Yes."

"And the rest of the week?"

She said, "I'll do my best to work it out."

Zach knew that meant yes. He hung up the phone in a state of near euphoria. They'd never spent three days in a row together, and with no school or other obligations in the way—just the two of them.

She arrived on Tuesday shortly after dark. He'd just put the eggplant parmesan in the oven and was drawing water into the big pot to boil for the spaghetti when she knocked on the door. He set the pot aside and ran to open the door. She stood outside on the breezeway with a shy smile, appearing nervous, almost like on a first date despite their well-established intimacy. He felt a little shy himself, a bit coy, and wondered if it was the prospect of three days together that held them back. He took the grocery bag from her arm and gestured for her to enter. She stepped inside just far enough to get past the door, which he closed behind her. He turned and faced her. She stood watching him with that same shy smile. He stared back at her. They both were waiting for the other to make some move, or say something. Then they both started to speak at once. Then they both stopped speaking. Then they laughed. But still they hadn't touched or spoken.

Finally Zach held up one finger on his free hand, gesturing for Becca to wait. He went and set the grocery bag on the kitchen counter, then came back and slid Becca's book bag off her shoulder and set it around the corner in the bedroom. Then he returned to the living room and took Becca's hand, opened the door, and led her back outside. Then he stepped inside and closed the door. He counted to five, then opened the door with a broad smile, took both Becca's hands in his, pulled her inside again, shut the door behind them, and gave her a powerful hug and a long full kiss on the lips.

When he stepped back from her, he took her two hands in his. "Now that's how glad I am to see you."

"That was strange. It was like I didn't even know you."

"I'll get you a key. You having to knock like some kind of saleswoman is way too awkward."

"I won't use it if you're not here."

"That's up to you. But I want you to use it if I am here—to let yourself in, make yourself at home. Far as I'm concerned, it is your home."

Becca shrugged. "Whatever you think."

Zach thought of an Auden couplet Barton often quoted:

And two by two like cat and mouse

The homeless played at keeping house.

How much were they playing at keeping house? Well, time to find out, he thought, with only a wisp of trepidation.

Becca peeled off her coat, tossed it on the couch, and set about unpacking the grocery bag, making herself at home.

They ate the dinner Zach had prepared—eggplant parmesan atop spaghetti, a tossed salad with bottled Italian dressing, and garlic bread—in an easy familiarity and intimacy that contrasted their initial awkwardness. Becca had many stories of her long holiday break at home—outings with her sister and niece, meetings with old high school friends, relatives and acquaintances visiting from out of town. She shared them enthusiastically with Zach, seemed almost intent on using her family experiences to fill the void in his life where family should've been. Zach listened happily, not so interested in her exploits with her family and friends—people he barely knew, if at all—as in just hearing her voice and seeing her so animated. He feared he sometimes overwhelmed Becca with his own passions—his writing, his love of literature and art, his diverse experiences in places near and far—and was delighted to step aside and let her immerse him in stories of her life.

Following dinner, clearing the table, and washing their dishes, they stood on either side of the small kitchen and contemplated their options for the rest of the evening. During semester, there was always something to do or someplace to go—even if it were only to The Inn on campus for beer drinking and conversation with whatever acquaintances they might find there. But campus was closed down for Break. They could maybe find a movie that was worth seeing, or a bar that was open on a weeknight; but the weather was cold and drizzly and there was no strong draw to pull them out into it. So they decided to stay in. It would be the first time they'd spent an entire evening in Zach's apartment.

The reason they never spent much time not in bed in Zach's apartment is that there were few entertainment options available there. He had no T.V., and the only music player he had was a small tape player-radio, with about a dozen cassettes—a mix of classical and rock—in a shoebox beside the player. Besides sleeping, Zach's apartment was good for reading, writing, and cooking. These options were more than enough for Zach, but he wondered if they would leave Becca bored.

But Becca seemed unfazed. She insisted on cooking tomorrow night's meal, and would start by making banana bread from her mom's recipe. She shooed him out of the kitchen—he retreated to his desk in the bedroom to work further on a difficult scene in his novel—and started rummaging through his cupboards and drawers to find the ingredients and utensils she needed for the banana bread.

Sometime later, with the wonderful odor of baking banana bread filling the whole apartment, Zach emerged from the bedroom and found Becca lying on the couch reading My Antonia, a book he'd given her before Christmas. She smiled up at him and raised her legs into the air so he could slide under and sit with her, then lowered her legs across his lap.

Becca held up the book. "She makes a hard life seem so wholesome."

"Antonia or Cather?"

"Is there a difference?"

Zach considered this. "Maybe not in this case—though it's always dangerous to assume any work of fiction is simple autobiography."

"Seems like most good fiction is largely autobiographical. Isn't that where its power comes from?"

"Even autobiography is run through the filter of memory, experience, and nostalgia. Consider 'The Dead' or Look Homeward, Angel—they start at autobiography and end at art, start trapped in time and end up timeless."

"What happens in the transition?"

Zach laughed. "Trade secret."

Becca sat up onto his lap. She kissed his forehead, then his eyes and nose, then his cheeks and lips, then over his neck. "What can I do to get you to give up that secret?" She unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and kissed down over his neck to his chest.

"It's a big secret," Zach said.

Becca undid a few more buttons, kissed further down.

"Can't share it with just anybody," he whispered.

She finished unbuttoning his shirt and pushed it around behind him.

From above, Zach was mesmerized by the perfectly straight part—on the left side of her head, coming off her temple—in her beautiful hair. He loved this girl so much. He loved her far beyond the parts of his body that were springing to life beneath her ministrations (he loved her with those parts also, though they sometimes seemed a distraction from the true nature of his love).

Just then the oven timer went off with an awful jangling buzz. Becca laughed into his stomach, kissed around his bellybutton, then stood to go check the banana bread.

Later that night, in the full dark of the bedroom, Zach lay on his back on the thin cushioned pallet, his legs extended straight, his arms stretched out to either side; and Becca lay squarely atop him on her stomach—her legs atop his legs, her feet on his shins, her arms stretched out on his arms, her hands reaching his wrists, her head cradled at his neck, just beneath his chin. Skin touched skin only at her feet on his shins, her hands at his wrists, her face in his neck. Everywhere else their two skins were separated by at least two, in some cases four, layers of cloth, as he had on boxers, sweatpants, and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and she had on panties, pajama bottoms, and his old button-down white shirt. They'd never continued the foreplay Becca'd started earlier, and certainly could've continued it here, in this position in this bed in this moment with both awake and yearning toward each other—her hips and groin grinding against his, trying to see how hard they could press together, if such pressure might actually dissolve the four layers of cloth that separated their longing. But then at that most impassioned moment, they both stopped thrusting toward each other simultaneously, and simply lay together—unmoving, unintentioned, just together. Zach held his breath; Becca panted lightly into his neck. Zach finally exhaled in a long slow release of all the tension and desire he had. His muscles went limp, his whole body compressed under her weight. He wanted her to flatten him to nothing, to absorb his body into hers; and she wanted to take him entirely into her. She'd never wanted to bring someone wholly into her before—she wanted him now, all inside her, all swallowed up. She didn't understand this momentary fierce desire. If she were told she had it, she'd deny it. If she tried to remember it, she'd draw a blank. She was outside herself; and she wanted him entirely inside her, all part of her. They lay like that—unmoving, unspeaking—till they both fell asleep from sheer exhaustion in the effort, the weight of the wish, still separated by those layers of cloth.

Zach woke in the middle of the night out of a calm, dreamless sleep. When he slept alone, he had frequent vivid dreams, almost all of them either frightening or, more often, haunting—various renderings of failure, missed connections, abandonment. But he never dreamed when he was sleeping with Becca; and he realized at just that moment of waking that she was his dream—of longing fulfilled, of safety secured: no other searching required. She'd slid partly off him during their hours of sleep, had her head on a pillow wedged against his shoulder, her near arm tucked under her head; but her left leg still crossed over his, her left shoulder and breast still rested on his chest. In the dark and with his eyes shut, he did a slow inventory of their bodies, trying to find if their skin touched anywhere. He felt her soft exhalations against his cheek, the rise and fall of her chest on his ribcage, their knees hard against each other but parted by the cloth of their pants' legs. He thought then maybe she really was a dream—a breathing angel withheld, isolated by attire, no skin offered. Then he felt it—the slow pulse of her blood through the veins of her wrist, her right wrist crossing over top of his left, his skin numb from hours of pressure but the blood still coursing, the liquid of her life passing so close to the liquid of his the two almost felt as one.

They woke the next morning to more drizzle and the air even colder—just a few degrees above freezing. The radio's weatherman said there was a chance the temperature would fall still further, producing some areas of freezing rain. Freezing rain or not, the weather was too unpleasant to undertake the long ride to the potteries. Becca said she knew of an old mill just a little outside of town that had been turned into a country store. They could go there in the afternoon without having to travel far or risk being caught in bad weather.

After breakfast she made a shopping list for tonight's dinner, then put on her coat to head out to check on her apartment (which had been empty since before Christmas), run a few errands, and get the groceries for dinner, leaving Zach to work on his novel.

Still in his sweatpants and T-shirt from last night, he intercepted her at the doorway. "So when will you be back?"

She smiled. "Missing me already?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Can't be together all the time."

"I know that; but I can still miss you, can't I?"

She kissed him lightly on the lips. "Only if I can miss you."

He nodded. "Deal."

"I'll be back early in the afternoon. That'll give us plenty of time to get to Johnson's Mill and back before dark."

He caught her hand as she turned toward the door. "Take this."

She looked at the key he gave her then laughed. "I guess this is serious."

He didn't join her in the laugh. "For a long time now."

She stared at him and nodded. "I know." She dropped the key in the pocket of her field coat. "But I'll still knock."

"Use the key!"

"I'll try," she said over her shoulder as she headed out into the gray damp day.

It seemed they'd traveled farther than they had. The drizzle of the morning had thinned to a silvery mist that clung to the bare trees, the lofty dark pines, the low pointy cedars, the sere grass of the fields. Though the temperature was above freezing and the roads safe, the mist and low clouds cast the countryside in a surreal aura that seemed caught between welcoming and forbidding.

Becca drove them away from town on country roads. At first Zach recognized the roads carrying them toward the university village to the south; but then Becca turned onto a road Zach had never seen. The few businesses—a convenience store, a gas station, a nursery—fell away behind them; and the brick-sided ranch houses grew spaced farther apart, the gravel drives into them longer and winding. They crossed a one-lane wooden bridge over a broad and swollen creek, Becca stopping before crossing to check for oncoming cars though they'd not seen any for miles. A half-mile beyond the bridge, they turned right onto a narrow road with no lane markings and deep drainage ditches on either side. The road wound off into a mix of thick woods and open pastures. It amazed Zach that they could be in such deep country less than ten miles from campus and the busy town that surrounded it.

Becca slowed and turned left into a narrow dirt drive pocked with deep puddles. She swerved to avoid the worst holes but the car still lurched from side to side.

"Just where are you taking me?" Zach asked with anxiety that was less than half feigned.

Becca grinned. "Should be just ahead," she said then added with less than full conviction, "But it was warm and dry the last time I was here; looks kind of different today."

Just then the car rounded a dense cluster of pine saplings; and a two-story house with dark green clapboard siding, white trim, and a tin roof rose up out of the mist. A wide porch ran the length of one side of the house, cluttered with rocking chairs, a butter churn, a spinning wheel, and other miscellany of household implements. There were no other cars or signs of life in the parking lot in front of the porch. A weather-beaten sign at the base of the wooden steps read OPEN, though that sign looked like it'd been sitting there for years. Becca eased the car to a stop beside that sign.

Standing on the porch, the cold mist clung tightly to their faces and worked its way inside their coats. They gazed across a broad field that sloped to a line of woods barely visible at the bottom of the hill. A single majestic oak rose up out of the center of the field, a rope swing hung from its lowest limb. A small flock of crows perched in the top of that tree like sentinels watching for invaders out of the woods. The crows flew off in silent unison and disappeared into the mist like phantoms.

Zach turned to Becca. "I'd say I'm about ten omens past relaxed."

She leaned toward him and lightly hugged his arm and pressed her face against the fur fringe of his bomber jacket. "Somewhere between spooked and petrified?" She looked up at him with the sweetest indulgent smile.

"More or less."

"If we're going to go, better to go together." She released his arm, turned and strode toward the house, and pushed open the tall and thick wooden door with Zach close at her heels.

They entered a large, two-story open room with exposed rough-sawn framing, unfinished pine paneling, and wide board flooring. To the left was a long wooden counter with glass-enclosed display shelves beneath. Beyond the counter was a flight of open-tread stairs that ran up to a loft that ran along one wall and across the front of the room, above where they'd just entered. There was a woodstove at the back, and they both felt its radiant warmth as soon as they stepped inside. On the walls, hanging from the railings, and displayed on shelves and tables scattered throughout the room was an eclectic mix of Americana from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth—antique quilts, a metal Esso sign from a crossroads gas station, a Bull Durham Tobacco poster, a display of soda-pop bottles, a wooden pitchfork, a hand-crank coffee mill, a stack of Saturday Evening Post magazines, an old stand-up radio in its ornate wood cabinet, an empty pickle barrel. The room was dimly lit by several bare-bulb fixtures hanging from the ceiling and two lit kerosene lanterns atop the long display counter.

A man with thinning gray hair and a weathered face sat against the wall behind the counter in a dark-stained chair with heavy wooden legs and thick carved armrests. "Afternoon," he said.

Becca turned to him with a smile that lit up the room better than all those measly light bulbs. "Good afternoon, sir. How are you today?"

"Be better if this damp weather would move on down the road."

"Got us all out of sorts," Becca agreed.

"Damp weather or damn weather?" Zach asked.

"Call it what you want," the man said. "Has my knees 'bout locked down tight. Paying the price for all that holiday cheer, I reckon."

"Dancing or drinking?"

The old man looked at him with a tilt of his head. "Who's asking?"

"What if I said the church deacon?"

"Then I'd say neither one!" The man roared with a cackling laugh that seemed to shake the walls.

"Your secret's safe with me."

Becca was looking at the ornately painted tins with friction-fit covers displayed on the shelves beneath the counter. "These are beautiful. What were they used for?"

The man pushed himself up out of the chair with his arms, stood a moment to wake his legs, then shuffled forward to the counter. "Best collection of tobacco tins this side of Richmond." He plugged in a fluorescent light that was mounted under the counter and the detailed designs and rich colors of the tins leapt out into the dim room.

"Were they hand-painted?"

"Some were done by printing machines. Others were hand-painted by teams of women sitting at a long table passing the tins from one to the next with each adding her own particular design or lettering or drawing, everyone a little different."

"Sounds like a southern version of a sweatshop," Zach said.

"I guess there was some sweat, especially in the summertime. But there's nothing wrong with good steady work. Mama said they'd line up at the old American Tobacco warehouse downtown whenever jobs came open. Then the tobacco companies stopped the hand-painting and did it all with machines. By the time I came along, they'd done away with tins altogether and started using cardboard and paper packs. Just wad them up when you're done and throw them away."

"Not as beautiful as these," Becca said.

"Or as useful. Nowadays, everything is used once and thrown away. Back then, everything was made to last a lifetime, then handed down to the next generation. Everything in here"—he waved his right arm to take in the entire room—"works as well as the day it was made, even this building—not fancy but well-made, built to last."

The old man might've had the bias of his years, but they could not contest his point. "Slower pace," Zach said.

"And harder work," Becca added, looking at the coffee mill and recalling the butter churn on the porch.

"Better quality," the man said. "Better life."

"At least you have this place," Becca said.

The man scoffed. "That's changing too—going to bring an interstate through the farm."

"Where?" Zach asked.

"Down the bottom of the hill, just beyond the woods." He pointed toward the front porch, the lone oak. "Already got it surveyed. Begin construction next year."

"It'll disrupt your life?"

"That's for sure—split the farm in two and reroute the roads, noise and exhaust fumes all the time."

"You going to move?" Becca asked.

"Nowhere to go," the man said. "Nowhere to hide."

That night in the dim grayness of the unlit bedroom just before he fell asleep on his back Zach felt Becca's hand push his sweatpants and boxers down to his knees. She straddled him and slowly but deliberately rode above him with the covers pulled over her shoulders like a tent and her head pitched back, facing the darker gray of the ceiling. She rode gently at first, her pace gradually quickening over many minutes, her head thrown back the whole time, a rhythmic moan rising from somewhere deep in her chest.

With no blankets over him and only his T-shirt covering his skin from the waist up in the chill room, Zach was cool but not cold, cool enough for his mind to detach somewhat from his body—especially the part of his body that was in full engage with the complementary part of Becca's body. And that detached part of him—clear sight adjusted to the dim light of the room, clear mind in full control of all his senses and sensing organs except that one that was operating by its own rules and will—gazed calmly at the girl rocking back and forth above him. He saw the pale underside of her chin, her neck muscles taut. He reached up and unbuttoned her shirt till it hung loose at her sides. He ran his right hand and fingers downward from her chin, across her neck, gently over her heaving chest, pressing lightly on her breastbone then down over her belly to where her pubic bone ground back and forth against his. Then he ran his hand back up over all the same parts till he reached her chest, paused there, felt her heart pounding inside her. He suddenly desperately wanted to know the person attached to this heart pounding just a thin layer of skin and a sternum's thickness from the pads of his fingers, wished to know and hold the essence of this faceless body riding to fruition over him, with him, on him. If he could just see her face now, her eyes, into her eyes—to that core, that center, that home—would he discover what he craved? Would he know then what she needed from him and find a way to give it to her?

She sped toward her current need, her breaths quickening, her short moans rising in pitch. Deprived of her face and eyes, Zach held his hand over her heart, felt her life pulsing forth from there, returning depleted, pulsing forth again. Then her body froze, her back arched, her head thrown back still further. An unfamiliar sound caught between a shriek and a sigh rose out of her chest and flew forth toward the ceiling then was gone. Her upper body suddenly pitched forward toward him, no strength or tautness in her muscles—pure free fall from far above.

With his hand already on her chest, Zach was able to ease her fall and spare them both some pain and bruising. He slowly brought his hand bracing her chest downward till it was sandwiched between their two chests, a temporary prisoner there. Becca's head flopped down between his left shoulder and neck, her panting exhalations whistling past his ear, fluffing his hair. Her chest heaved against his hand.

He slid his trapped hand free and wrapped both arms around her and pulled her still tighter to him. He rolled his face toward hers and kissed her cheek. He could see her eyes were shut, might remain so now till morning as she faded toward full sleep. He'd just given her something she needed—that much was sure. But he also realized that it alone wasn't enough, not by a long shot.

He pressed his lips lightly against her ear and whispered, "I'll always love you." Her uninterrupted breathing proved she didn't hear his words but also guaranteed she knew their truth at some far deeper level, trusted his pledge of permanent devotion and care at the core that would allow her to fall asleep still straddling his waist, blank vulnerable to any passing harm, harm that he would not let come her way. Her other needs he'd have to seek later, the need at hand challenge enough for tonight.

In her quest to show him more regional color, Becca drove Zach into downtown Shefford for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall diner called The Palace. The previous three days' cold drizzle, low clouds, and mist had finally cleared up and given way to bright sunny skies and temperatures rising into the fifties. This was the kind of day Zach had hoped would dominate this southern version of winter, a type of winter day that had been noticeably absent in the season to date, a winter defined by cool, damp, gray weather that was enough to drive even the most effusive of souls into the dark hole of depression.

The sun and the warmth combined with the golden-haired girl beside him and no obstacles in the path of their day together and no overt obstacles in the path of their unfolding love made Zach want to dance and sing (neither of which he ever did unless locked in his room with the lights low and the shades drawn). He rolled the car window down and hung his head out in the warm fresh air like a big shaggy-haired blond dog. He tilted his head back, felt the wind push his long hair out behind him. At a stoplight near the edge of downtown, he pulled his upper body back into the car, leaned across the console, and kissed Becca on the cheek.

She faced him and laughed. "Feeling frisky today, Mr. Sandstrom?"

Zach grinned but shook his head. "Just very much alive."

Becca nodded. "It is a gorgeous day."

"Oh," he added, "and I'm head over heels in love with my driver."

"That right?"

He leaned over and kissed her on the lips—holding the kiss for several seconds.

The driver behind them honked his horn.

Becca turned her attention back to the road and the green light in front of them. "Hold that thought for tonight," she said as she drove through the intersection.

"It'll always be there."

"Always is a long time," Becca said as she turned down a narrow one-way street between tall grimy buildings with boarded up storefronts.

"Not for me when it comes to you." The statement was for Zach a simple truth, planted in his heart for months now. He was pleased to say it to the only one for whom it mattered, in the full light of this fine day.

Becca stopped the car in the middle of the road (there were no cars behind them). "That's sweet," she said, looking calmly at him. "But you don't know that."

Zach gazed just as calmly back at her. "It's not sweet—or if it is, that's secondary. It is primarily a statement of fact. And yes, I do know it, absolutely. It is the only thing I know for sure."

Becca stared at this man of intemperate avowals and passionate beliefs, unlike anyone she'd ever known. Her right pinky touched the corner of her mouth, the way it often did when she'd confronted a confounding realization, and hung there for several seconds. She put her hand back on the wheel but still faced Zach, still held his eyes with hers. "Then I'll always thank you."

Zach nodded and smiled. "And you'll always be welcome."

Becca found a parking spot on the next street up. When they stepped out of the car, they were enveloped in the sweet earthy smell of cured tobacco being turned into cigarettes at the two sprawling factories just down the road. The smell was wonderfully rich and exotic, like a spice from a distant land, about as far removed from the biting odor of tobacco smoke as two odors from the same substance could be. That fragrance combined with the deserted streets and shuttered buildings gave the setting a dream-like quality, as if they'd been dropped down a local version of Alice's rabbit hole. They fed the old-fashioned meter with a pocketful of change (their currency still worked in this surreal world) then walked the two blocks to the restaurant with its floor-to-ceiling windows across the entire front facing out onto an alley with soggy newspapers moldering in the gutters and a mangled shopping cart wrapped around a power pole.

Despite the abject setting, the restaurant was nearly full of mostly construction workers from the high-rise office tower and hotel being built on a city block where a Woolworth's department store had been till a wrecking ball smashed it to oblivion. (This block, including The Palace restaurant, was itself slated for demolition in about a year, to make way for a parking deck to accommodate the cars for the hotel and office complex.) The booths were all occupied, but they found a couple stools available at the end of the Formica-topped, chrome-edged lunch counter.

The small restaurant bustled with noise and motion, the action especially frenetic behind the lunch counter as several servers—they were all men, both black and white, with long white aprons over jeans and white T-shirts—ran back and forth, shouting orders through the pass-through into the kitchen at one end of the counter, then striding back with plates of food balanced on muscular bare arms. Given the cramped space beyond the counter and the number and size of the servers moving to and fro, it was amazing that there were no accidents or harsh words exchanged. It was clear that they'd been doing this for a long time and were comfortable in the chaos.

One of the waiters—a white man with slicked back dark hair and a MOM tattoo on his left forearm—paused in front of them. "What'll you have?" His words and his manner were brusque, but his smile and drawl were friendly. Becca ordered the fried chicken platter with collards and okra and Zach got chicken-fried steak (no direct relation to fried chicken) with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans. The waiter scribbled the order down in an illegible short-hand then raced to the pass-through window and shouted something unintelligible to the cooks beyond the hole in the wall.

"They must think if they move fast enough they won't tear this place down," Zach said.

"Like Superman turning the clock back."

"Yeah. Or maybe if you're always in a frenzy, you don't give yourself time to think about it."

"Or maybe they'll just take what comes and learn to live with it."

"No doubt."

"But I'll miss these old places. They're already all gone in Greensboro—won't be long here."

"The New South has arrived," Zach said.

Becca nodded. "The New South."

The waiter slid their plates full of food in front of them, added two glasses of sweet tea, a small cruet of vinegar (for Becca's collards), and a bottle of ketchup all in less time than it took Zach to unwrap his silverware from the napkin. Then the waiter was gone.

"The New South will be a hurry-up kind of place if these guys are any example," Zach said.

"Got to adapt," Becca said.

"Guess I'll see a slower Old South in Williamsburg this weekend."

"Pretty old, pretty slow. You ever been there?"

Zach shook his head as he dug into the delicious chicken-fried steak slathered in thick gravy.

"I'll be curious what you think—twentieth-century actors playing eighteenth-century people in meticulously recreated eighteenth-century houses and shops. They're very convincing. Don't even try to get them to step out of character—it won't happen."

"Sounds strange."

"It is, at first; but after a few hours, you'll think it's normal. You'll think the traffic rushing past beyond the wooden barriers is the oddity, and the slow and careful life inside the walls a better reality."

"Maybe I'll just stay up there and become a stonemason or a tanner or something."

"You'd be good at it, Zach; you'd fit right in."

"They got chicken-fried steak up there?"

"Doubt it."

"So much for that idea."

"They've got great fried chicken, though."

"Well, I'll think about it."

"Why are you going up there?"

"Because Barton asked me to go along as his research assistant."

"And what does a research assistant do?"

"In this case, keep Barton company, maybe help with the driving."

"And why Williamsburg?"

"Well, Williamsburg is a sidelight, where we'll be staying. The main reason is to go to Jamestown to check some facts for Barton's novel. A key scene takes place at Jamestown."

"But you said the other night that an author runs it all through memory and reflection, turning fact into art."

Zach laughed. "I'm touched. You really do listen."

"To you, yes." She paused with a chicken drumstick held in her right hand. "Well, most of the time." She winked before turning her attention to the drumstick.

"In Barton's mind, you've got to get the place exactly right, then set the characters in that carefully defined place and let them come alive there. In some ways, it's the setting that animates the characters. But what Barton doesn't tell you is that he's reshaping the place even as he defines it—emphasizing one thing even as he excludes another. However literal he would claim it is, it's still the place of his remembrance, reshaped by his memory and experience."

"So what are you going to check out?" Becca'd finished her food and had turned on her swivel stool to face Zach directly.

"The facts of the place."

"So they can be changed?"

"At the author's discretion." He'd finished his meal and turned toward Becca.

"So then is it truth or fiction?"

"Oh, it's always truth; it just may not be fact."

Becca laughed. "You've got me thoroughly confused now."

"I'm just the research assistant."

She took his hands in hers. "Who's being taken from me for the weekend."

"Sorry. I'll hurry back."

"Maybe if we stay here, time will stand still."

Zach nodded. "We could give it a try—chicken-fried steak for all eternity: not a bad Heaven." But he was already reaching for his wallet to pay the check the waiter had left in one of his whirlwind passes.

Lori called Jennifer who called Donna who called Zach to tell him of a Welcome Back, Kick-off the Weekend Early, Before the Start of Classes party that Lori and her roommate Megan were hosting that night at their two-bedroom apartment in the same complex Zach lived in (it was a big complex, with dozens of buildings and hundreds of apartments). "Lori told Jennifer to tell me to tell you that she really hoped you could stop by."

Zach laughed. "I barely know Lori."

"Well, far be it for me to read between the lines, but Megan might've had a little input with the invitation. She's had her eye on you since last fall."

"What would Megan say if I brought a guest?"

"Male or female?"

"Female."

"That'll be interesting. I'd like to be there to see how Megan handles that. But the invitation is coming from Lori, and I know Lori would say bring your friend—the more the merrier."

"So you're not going to be there?"

"Wish I was. But I'm still in High Point, won't be back to campus till tomorrow afternoon."

"And I'll be in Williamsburg by then."

Donna sighed. "Story of my life—another cute guy fleeing across state lines at my approach."

"I'll make it up to you, dear; I promise."

"I'll hold you to it."

"I'm good as my word. Travel safe. See you next week."

"I'm counting the hours," Donna said and hung up.

Zach told Becca about the party when she got back from dropping groceries off at her apartment to restock their empty fridge.

"Sounds like fun," Becca replied.

"Back to student life."

Becca shrugged. "Can't hide forever."

They ate a dinner comprised of leftovers from the previous two nights then showered and changed and drove up the hill (it was that far) to 49-F around ten o'clock.

Students jammed the living room, kitchen, dining area, and hallway of Lori and Megan's apartment, and spilled out onto the second-floor breezeway in the clear cool night. The doors off the hallway, to their two bedrooms, were both shut.

Lori greeted Zach with a warm hug and shook Becca's hand politely with only a slight raising of her eyebrows, then told them to help themselves to beer in the kitchen and whatever food they could find, if there was any left. Zach thanked her, said they'd already eaten, and waded toward the kitchen to find two beers. Becca looked around the room, greeted a couple of familiar faces with a smile and wave, and searched for a place to sit.

As Zach was shuffling sideways between the kitchen counter and a couple wrapped together in a prolonged and highly intimate greeting, a pair of hands reached around from behind him and covered his eyes.

"Guess who?" a smoky voice whispered just inches from his ear.

There was only one who to match that voice. "I think that would be one of the hosts of this party."

"Which one?" the voice whispered.

Zach could feel her breath on his ear. "I greeted Lori in the living room, so this must be the other one."

"Say her name," she whispered.

"Megan."

"Good guess. You win a prize." Her hands still covered his eyes.

"And what would that be?"

"You'll have to come back into my room to claim it."

Zach said, "Can I bring my date?"

Megan spun him around by the shoulders. "I hope you mean 'date' as in a piece of dried fruit from off the date palm."

Zach smiled down at Megan. She looked incredibly sexy with her shoulder-length dirty blond hair in cascading tight curls with a single thin braid of hair hanging past her eye and over her cheek down to the shoulder strap of her bright red tank top that may have been out of season for the rest of the world but not for Megan. "I mean date as in Rebecca Coles waiting somewhere out in the living room for me to return with her beer." Zach looked over the heads of the crowd and was relieved that he couldn't see Becca from where they stood.

Megan's frown curled into a mischievous grin. "You would've had more fun if you'd come alone."

"My loss."

"You can still collect your prize, if you ditch the dried fruit." She had on lip gloss and long, dangling earrings.

Zach grinned. "The dried fruit stays."

Megan paused then made him one last offer. "You can have the prize anyway, back in my room. We'll go look for the beer there." By then her arms had circled his waist.

Zach reached around and pulled her arms apart and held them in front of him by her wrists. "I'm incredibly flattered, Megan; and sorry not to be able to take you up on your offer. But I'd better get back to Becca."

Megan shrugged. "Suit yourself." She turned and waded into the crowd.

By the time Zach found Becca, she was sitting in a large, upholstered chair tucked into one corner of the living room. Zach handed her the bottle of beer then leaned over and kissed the crown of her head.

Becca smiled up at him. "What was that for?"

"No reason."

"Well, thank you for no reason." She sat up on the wide armrest and patted the cushion for him to sit.

Zach sat down and Becca leaned back against his shoulder, still seated on the armrest.

They sat and watched the party unfold in front of them. On the few occasions when they had something to say, Becca could simply turn her head and speak softly into Zach's ear, or he into hers, insuring that they'd be heard in the noisy room, and that no one else would hear them. It allowed them a degree of privacy that was in short supply in the crowded room of jostling and jostled bodies.

That sense of privacy was important for them at the moment, as each felt a kind of culture shock at this sudden immersion into renewed undergraduate life and its complex energy and demands. This return was especially jarring for their relationship, as they'd been mostly alone, and completely away from students, throughout the holiday break, a break that effectively began for them at the end of classes over a month ago. They'd thoroughly enjoyed their solitary time together, had made it the foundation on which they'd built their relationship, and had come to take it for granted. This return to student culture as a couple was a new and uneasy transition, especially given the expectation of sexual availability that dominated, and largely fueled, these sorts of social gatherings. Zach had already experienced first-hand this expectation; and the two of them didn't have to watch the crowd for long before they saw numerous examples of such negotiations.

Becca rolled her face toward Zach's ear. "Is it just me, or is everybody in here on the make?" She'd just watched a hulking guy with a ball cap turned around backwards on his head approach a petite blond girl, talk for a few minutes, then lead her toward the door with his meaty hand sliding down her back and under the waist band of her tight jeans.

Zach nodded. "At least two aren't."

"Thank God."

"I guess everybody's feeling energized after the long break and with the start of semester."

"Staking their claims."

"Something like that."

"And the last undergraduate semester for some."

"Probably for most here—Lori and Megan are both seniors."

"Need to sow their oats while there's still time."

"Sow something, anyway."

"Seems a little depraved."

"Modern times."

Becca nodded. "Probably a sociology paper in this somewhere."

"Yeah, but who'd want to write it?"

A few hours into the party and with the crowd thinning just a bit, one of the starters on the school's top-ranked basketball team ducked his head to clear the front door jamb and walked into the living room amidst much buzz and fanfare. Guys gave him high-fives and girls gave him hugs. He'd scored twenty-eight points two nights before in leading their team to victory over a national rival. He loved the attention, and everyone around him loved showering it upon him. He moved slowly across the living room toward the kitchen with a bevy of sycophants trailing along.

Megan suddenly appeared from the hallway and stood directly in front of the star. She threw her arms around his neck and stood on her tip-toes and he bent over a little and they exchanged a long and open-mouthed kiss. They maybe knew each other, or maybe not. In any case, Megan clearly wanted to get to know him better. After their mouths parted, she said something into his ear. He shrugged then followed her lead down the hall and out of sight, leaving the small crowd that had been following with nothing to do except continue drinking and chasing whatever members of the opposite sex remained unclaimed.

Awhile later, Becca rolled her face toward Zach. "Everyone's so passionate and full of life tonight," she said, her lips brushing his hair.

"I'll say."

"But a year from now, no one will remember any of this."

"Some of them won't remember any of it tomorrow morning." He checked his watch. "I mean, this morning."

"But even for those who do remember, it'll fade eventually. As far as the world is concerned, none of this will have happened."

"Clearly it happened."

"But it won't exist," she said.

Zach nodded. "Unless I tell them."

"So tell them."

"If I do, will it be this?"—he waved his free hand over the room—"Or something else?"

Becca grinned into the side of his face, nibbled on his earlobe, then whispered, "'It's always truth; it just may not be fact.'"

Over her shoulder, Zach saw Megan emerge from the hallway, her hair rumpled and her face flushed. She smiled in Zach's direction then disappeared into the kitchen. The basketball star emerged a couple strides behind her, still buckling his wide leather belt.

In the pre-dawn light of that morning, Zach and Becca lay together in his bed, both on their sides, Zach behind with his arms around her, she cradling his hands with hers up under her breasts, clothed in their sleepwear, covered by Zach's blankets, skin touching skin, cloth touching cloth, his lips on her hair, neither one awake or asleep, paused in their life, in their love, in their singular union, in this moment of perfection that would never fade or suffer decay.

Visitation

Call down descending ages like

time-darkened corridors in the

abandoned schools of our youth

and she will appear.

She has for centuries, blessing

with smile and voice and eyes

and touch countless generations

that sought her light.

She's here again, has come at

night this time to stand before

you when the sun breaks the

back of darkness.

Don't fear her presence. She's

the one true gift you'll ever

receive. Rise and take the

life she extends

Before the change occurs and

she becomes memory or dream

or just a thing that maybe you

once were offered.

Return kindness. She's tired

of traveling through ages, wants

to remain here, this place, with

you. Hold her.

Welcome her. Say Stay.

Say the word.

Stay.

Honeymoon

Becca knocked on the door to Zach's apartment at 7:30 on Friday evening. Zach opened the door after a pause with the collar to his white dress shirt still open and his rust-colored silk tie looped around his neck but still unknotted. He grinned at Becca and shook his head. "Why'd I give you a key if you'll never use it?"

"This is your place, Zach. I can't just come barging in."

"Barge away. I want you to barge." He turned to head back to the bathroom's mirror to finish tying his tie.

Zach and Becca loved to get dressed up and go out to nice restaurants. Neither had a lot of money, but what money they did have was spent mainly in nice restaurants. This evening they were trying for the first time a restaurant that had recently opened on the south side of town called Stan's. It had received good reviews in the local paper and from some of Zach's faculty friends (none of their student friends spent the time or money to go to nice restaurants).

Zach returned to the living room with his collar buttoned, his tie neatly knotted, and a gold collar clasp under the knot. He pulled on the coat to his gray suit. Becca stood in her azure and cream print dress with short sleeves and a scoop neck. She had on a simple pearl necklace. She slipped into her calf-length camelhair coat that was open in the front and had no belt.

She looked Zach up and down. "You look stunningly handsome, Mr. Sandstrom."

"Hardly good enough for my beautiful date."

"More than good enough."

"I can only hope."

The restaurant was actually better than expected, and they'd expected a lot. The contemporary décor was simple and elegant, the low-ceilinged room cozy but not claustrophobic, the lighting bright but not glaring. The tables and chairs were painted wood in a contemporary design, the chairs with comfortable natural linen upholstery, the tables with crisply ironed white linen table cloths. The silverware was all neatly and properly placed, and there was a single red rose in a white china bud vase beside a votive candle in scarlet glass holder. The receptionist was pleasant and professional; the waiters were all middle-aged men who served with a European formality and reserve.

And the food was exceptional—delicately seasoned contemporary American fare with provincial French and Italian touches. Zach had a smoked salmon appetizer with the paper-thin sliced salmon arranged in the middle of the plate and surrounded by small portions of finely chopped red onion, marinated capers, thin sliced hard-boiled quail eggs, dill-seasoned crème fraiche, and toasted baguette rounds. Becca had a duck confit and leek terrine served on a bed of red endive and accompanied by a boule of crusty country wheat bread. For their entrees, Zach had veal piccata that was perfectly cooked and seasoned and served with buttered house-made egg noodles and a simple broccoli and pearl onion stir-fry; and Becca had grilled swordfish with a honey-mustard and soy sauce glaze, saffron rice, and a cauliflower gratinee. For dessert, Zach had crème caramel and Becca had a bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut mousse. Throughout their meal, they shared a bottle of a fine Riesling recommended to them by the wine steward who was also the owner, a short stocky man with curly raven black hair, a burgundy ascot, a difficult to place accent, and a Bohemian flare. Zach was especially impressed to see their wine glasses always full though he never noticed them being refilled.

Becca slid her mousse toward Zach before taking a bite. He used his clean teaspoon to take a generous scoop of the dark pudding with its fluffy cream topping. "Hey," Becca cried, "Leave me some."

Zach made a quick reach for more even as Becca pulled the dish back to her side of the table. The mousse was amazingly smooth and rich and decadent. Zach made a mental note that if he ever really needed to dazzle a girl, to bring her to Stan's and treat her to the bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut mousse. Then he looked to Becca swooning over that dessert and hoped he'd never again have cause to try to impress another girl. "What do you think?" he asked.

"About the mousse? That I've died and gone to Heaven."

"I don't know if they'll let you in Heaven with that whipped cream on your lip."

She flicked the cream away with her tongue.

"No, I mean about the restaurant."

"It's wonderful. Don't you think so?"

"I do. Better than I'd hoped."

"Do you think they'll make it?"

He looked around the small but full dining room and recalled the line of people without reservations waiting in the foyer. "Looks like an auspicious start."

"But it's the long haul you have to wonder about. Kind of an upscale place for a blue-collar town."

"The town's changing, and liquor-by-the-drink will pay for a lot of mistakes and experimentation." The county had recently legalized the sale of beer, wine, and spirits in restaurants, creating a new and sizable source of revenue for restaurants and prompting the opening of a number of upscale restaurant-bars.

Becca finally set her mousse bowl aside after running her spoon around its rim several times. "They'd better stay open. My taste buds will go into mourning if they stop making that mousse."

"Maybe I'll slip Stan a twenty for the recipe."

Becca laughed. "Best investment you'll ever make."

"Good as done."

They lingered for another fifteen minutes over hot tea—Earl Gray for Zach, lemon zinger for Becca—and never felt pushed to leave despite the full restaurant and the line at the door. For Zach and Becca both, this type of evening in this type of setting was as good as their relationship got in public—fine food, attentive service, elegant setting, no rush to be anywhere, free to relax and enjoy each other.

But even they could stretch out such an occasion only so far. Zach called for the check and paid in cash, leaving a generous tip.

Becca tried to hand him enough money to cover her half of the meal, but Zach slid the bills back to her. "Zach!" she protested.

Zach raised his hands. "My scholarship check came yesterday."

"That's for school."

"No, school's paid for. This check was for living expenses."

"But not places like this."

"Hey—that's none of their business. I'm living"—he cast his arm out towards the whole restaurant—"and it's expensive."

Becca shook her head. "My treat next time."

"Deal," he said.

He stood and took Becca's hand to help her up. He was always proud to be seen with her, proud to show her off. They walked the length of the dining room with her hand tucked into his elbow. She brought so much grace and charm to him, he brought so much attention and dignity to her. In the alcove between the crowded bar-foyer and the orderly dining room, Zach gave the coat-check girl his ticket, tipped her when she returned with Becca's coat, then helped Becca put on her coat. Zach's every motion, every solicitous gesture toward Becca, was done with measured care, knowing that almost every eye in the restaurant was watching them, or at least aware of their presence and movements. He reveled in their attention and witness—not of him or of Becca or even of the two of them together, but of their love, as if believing that if enough people saw them at their shining best then it could never be taken away: that that many witnesses couldn't be mistaken; God wouldn't allow it.

They stepped outside into the cold, damp February night. The poorly lit gravel parking lot and the neon-signed gas station and convenience store across the highway made this exterior feel as cheap and tawdry as the interior had felt elegant and dignified. They almost ran across the lot to Becca's car and jumped inside.

Once inside, Becca turned to him. "Where to, navigator?"

"Badencourt's having a floor party. Arnie invited us, if you're up for it." Badencourt was the dorm where most of Zach's intramural basketball team lived. These guys revered Zach both on and off the court, saw him as a sort of transcendent outlander with a sweet jump shot, near unlimited knowledge, and a gorgeous girlfriend who came to all his games and cheered them on.

Becca burst out laughing. "A dorm party? In these clothes? At this hour?"

Her gleeful incredulity was utterly charming. If Zach weren't already completely in love with her, he would be now. Then he thought—what the hell—and let himself fall in love with her all over again. "The night's young, and they'll love the clothes. Trust me, they'll love the clothes."

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"You know the best time for sleep, don't you?"

"Yes, I know," she said, having heard the question from Zach many times before. They said in unison, "Later." She started the car and pointed it toward Badencourt dorm.

The Badencourt commons room was empty and eerily lonely as they crossed through it on their way to the stairs. The table lamps were all lit, the plush chairs and couches and pillows inviting, the oriental rugs warm and soft, the dark paneling rich and elegant, the bookshelves full, their books waiting use. There was even a gas-log fire in the painted brick fireplace. But with no people, the Victorian parlor seemed as cold and dead as a tomb, a sumptuous metaphor of loss. Zach and Becca hurried through without pausing. The fire-code stairwell, with its bare painted block walls, broom-finished concrete steps, and welded steel railings offered its own modernist definition of loneliness, but seemed less threatening than the empty parlor. And they could hear the pulsing beat of rock music and the blurred chatter of voices descending from above—there was promise of company within this modernist catacomb.

Through the fire doors' reinforced-glass windows, Zach could see Arnie seated behind a table to the side of the hall. On the table in front of him were a six-pack of beer, a bottle of Jamaican rum, two unopened wine coolers and a baseball glove. He was surveying the table's contents with a glassy-eyed stare when Zach and Becca opened the doors and walked into the hallway. The blaring music struck them like a gale-force wind.

Arnie glanced up in surprise. "Holy shit! Look who's here." He extended a hand to Zach across the table, then took Becca's hand and kissed it lightly. "What's up with the threads?" he shouted. "You two just get married?"

"That's right, Arnie. We're here for the honeymoon suite."

All three turned and looked down the chaotic hall. Men and women, some in various stages of undress, were running from room to room, some girls riding on the backs of guys, one girl tossed over some guy's shoulder and pounding on his back. People were seated on the hall's vinyl flooring leaning against the wall. A few of these seemed to be passed-out, the others were staring off into space or swaying from side to side with the music, their eyes closed. Some guy with a fireman's hat was running around with a seltzer bottle spraying anyone with a cigarette or candle.

Arnie took a couple of steps toward the fray, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, "Zach and Becca just got married. Prepare the honeymoon suite." It was unclear if anyone heard him over the music; and, if they did, if anyone cared.

"What's all this?" Zach shouted as he gestured toward the eclectic mix on the table.

Arnie waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, that's just bribes. You wouldn't believe the riff-raff that showed up for the party." He paused. "Well, I guess you would—you can see it all down there." He pointed down the hallway. "I wasn't going to let them in, but then they made it worth my while. Doorkeeper's got to make his living somehow."

"I get the booze," Zach shouted. "But what about the glove?"

"This guy I'd never seen before comes by and says he was on the baseball team but flunked off yesterday. I would've let him in without a bribe, but he said he didn't want the glove anymore. So now I got it."

Zach tried on the well-oiled glove. "Too bad for him, but good luck for you."

"Yeah," Arnie shouted. "Nice mitt."

"So do we need to bribe you?"

"Hell no. Dressed like that, we ought to be paying you—raise the whole stature of the party, not to mention its grade-point average."

"That's good, because I don't have any booze to offer."

"Ain't a problem, Zach," he said with a sly smile. "We got plenty of booze up here." He pointed down the hallway. "Kegs first door on the right, wine and cheese for the ladies in C.H.'s room on the left, hard stuff in Bill and Al's suite, and Everclear in the showers. You make it through all the stops to the far end of the hall, we'll give you a prize. Hell, might even part with this cherished glove." He held it up for Zach to admire again.

"Not looking to run the gauntlet, Arnie; not tonight." He looked to Becca who was standing off to one side, watching the revelry with wide-eyed wonder.

Arnie followed his gaze. "Oh, yeah. That's right." Then he shouted out over the crowd again. "Zach and Becca just got married. Prepare the honeymoon suite."

Becca turned and shouted, "Arnie!"

He said, "What?"

"We're not married!"

"You're not?"

"No," she shouted.

Arnie faced down the hall again. "Forget the honeymoon suite. They just got divorced."

So Zach and Becca didn't get the honeymoon suite, but they did find an unoccupied couch off to the side in C.H.'s room. They discovered the couch was unoccupied because it had a broken frame under the cushions that caused the occupants to sink almost all the way to the floor when you sat on it. They considered seeking a another resting place but doubted that they'd find another spot in the crowded party and finally concluded that the couch was actually fairly comfortable, especially if they set their feet on the beat-up coffee table in front of them. Zach sipped on a cup of beer while Becca stayed with the wine she'd started the night with, though the warm Chablis was a poor successor to the excellent Riesling they'd shared at the restaurant. They sat shoulder to shoulder in their fine clothes on the broken couch in relative isolation not trying to talk over the blaring music and amusedly watching the party unfold, as if serving as the lone audience to the experimental drama of debauchery being played out before them. The room was lit with only red bulbs, casting all people and objects in a ghastly glow. On their way into the room, Zach had shouted to C.H. if the red were meant to represent hell or hedonism? C.H. had looked puzzled and shouted back, "What's hedonism?" But before Zach could shout an answer, C.H. had winked and said, "Take your pick." Zach figured hedonism for now, hell later.

The window beside Becca was open on the chill night to let the cigarette smoke out and fresh air in. At some point, Becca began to shiver against Zach; he took her camelhair coat and gently spread it over her from her feet on the table up to her neck. She expressed her thanks in kisses, first to his neck, then his cheek, then his mouth; and in a surreptitious squeeze of his thigh from under the fringe of her coat. Zach brushed her hair lightly with his near hand—she had such beautiful hair.

They returned to watching the red-tinted play enacted before them—sorority sisters whispering together in small cliques, fraternity brothers trying to outdo each other with loud shouts and chest-beating complete with lots of spilled alcoholic beverages, couples making out and groping each other in dark corners, some girl with a big floppy hat dancing her way through the shifting crowd. Zach and Becca were quite content with each other, the long slow arc of their night, and with their unique place in this mayhem—included in the whole but largely free of its demands, privileged to watch and laugh and judge benevolently and be together in their own half-hidden world of love set off to the side of the rest of the world rushing past.

C.H. started it when he brought Becca an unopened bag of nacho chips, set them reverently at her feet under the coat on the table, bowed and said, "Congratulations." Then Bill brought an unopened pint of rum, set it beside the chips, bowed, then turned and left. Then someone in thick glasses neither Zach nor Becca knew brought a pair of clean gym socks and laid them on top of the bag of nacho chips. Then another stranger brought a paperback of Shakespeare's Sonnets. The strangers didn't speak or make eye contact, just left their gifts, bowed and disappeared back into the party. Then some drunk girls, probably egged on by C.H., got into the act by honoring Zach with items of intimate apparel—first a red garter (at least he thought it was red—but then everything was red!) draped over his knee, then some lace panties hung from his dress shoe propped on the table. Then some other girl brought a box of condoms and dropped them in his lap. Not to be outdone, the guys brought Becca some Speedo briefs and a pair of padded handcuffs. Becca's smile never faded, and she acknowledged each gift with a kind nod. (She did blush at the briefs; but in the red light, only Zach could tell.)

The gang finally ended their faux tribute when two of the girls rolled in a cake covered with flashing sparklers on a cart. The blinding flashing sparks mixed with the red lights made the room and its sudden crush of occupants seem to jump around in a ghoulish, surreal dance. When the sparklers finally faded as the last one spit out a few weak sparks, Arnie stepped forward from the back of the crowd and raised his cup full of some clear and no doubt potent liquor and said, "To Zach and Becca and a lifetime of happiness." Everyone else in the room raised whatever drinking utensil they had or could scrounge from the used ones lying everywhere and said, "Here-here." Arnie placed the baseball glove at Zach's feet, then gave him a thumbs up and blew a kiss to Becca, who blew one back. Then the girl that had brought the condoms started shouting, "Kiss-kiss-kiss;" and the other girls joined in. Zach looked at Becca, she shrugged then nodded, and he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth for at least twenty seconds. The girls behind them started cheering wildly. When their lips finally parted, instead of sitting back up, Zach rolled his head down close to Becca's ear and said, "If we stay like this, will they go away?" She said back into his near ear, "If they don't, we will." Her voice was joking, light, happy.

Behind them, as if knowing their feelings, Arnie said, "Break it up. They're on their honeymoon. Give the lovebirds a little privacy."

And the crowd listened, returning to whatever pursuits or adventures had engaged them prior to the tribute.

But Zach didn't lift his face from Becca's ear and soft, enticingly scented hair. He said, "I love you more than anything I have ever known, more than anything I will ever know."

Becca said, "Thank you," paused a second, then added, "But if my mom finds out we got married at a dorm party, she's going to kill me."

Behind them, someone took a bite of the cake and got a mouthful of magnesium chips from the spent sparklers. He cursed and spit out the bite, then took the entire cake, including the plate and serving knife and spent sparklers, and chucked it out the open window. Down on the Quad, someone yelled, "What the hell?" and threw a chunk of the cake back at the window. It fell short of its target, hit the stone façade, and fell into the bushes at the base of the building.

When they finally made it to Zach's bed, the night was far closer to dawn than to dusk. Zach was exhausted but happy, perhaps as happy as he'd ever been. Becca had been a little quiet after the tribute, not that there was much to say with all that noise. But she'd also been quiet during the short ride to his apartment. Zach figured she had to be at least as tired as he, probably more. So he switched off the table lamp that sat on the floor beside his makeshift bed, leaned over and kissed her forehead, each shut eyelid, and then her closed mouth. He laid his head on the soft hollow between her shoulder and her chest. Just before falling asleep, he asked, "Are you happy?"

She answered, "Maybe too happy."

"Didn't know there was such a thing."

"Me either, till tonight."

Zach didn't hear her response; he'd fallen asleep.

Sometime near dawn, he woke from a troubling dream he couldn't recall, turned his head, and saw Becca's eyes wide-open and watching him. "You all right?" he asked.

"I'm O.K." she said, and kissed him on the forehead.

"Anything I can do?"

"You sleep. I'll keep watch for us both."

He had no idea what she meant by that, but was too tired and groggy to question it now. He accepted her offer, curled up full length against her, and fell back to sleep, dreamless this time, leaving her alone to face whatever demons the night had put in her path.

Grapefruit

"Zach, listen to me!" Becca said in as firm a voice as all that conscious and unconscious training in Southern grace would allow. "I can't handle it." She stood in front of his living room window, her face and upper body backlit by the bright sun of the dry and cold day beyond the glass.

Zach sat in the upholstered chair against the far wall, as far from her as the room would allow. From where he sat her face was a dark mask—her eyes invisible in front of the brilliant day, her perfect features all a shadowed blur, perfect just now only in his memory. Part of him longed to see her eyes, that harbor for him since the start; but most of him was frightened of what he'd find there. In either case he didn't rise to close the distance between them, didn't move to mute the sun hiding her from him.

"I don't exist apart from you," she repeated. "I've got to find myself again."

It was three days after the Badencourt party and the faux tribute the partygoers had laid at their feet. Zach had never felt closer to Becca, never felt more secure in their relationship. Apparently Becca felt differently—or maybe not, maybe she felt exactly the same way, and it scared her. "You can have all the space you need. Just don't discard what we have," he pleaded.

"What we have is exactly what's keeping me from being me."

"That makes no sense. What we have is part of you now. You can't just cut it out and pretend it never happened."

"I'm not pretending it never happened. I just need to focus on me for a little while—me, not us."

Zach still couldn't see her face. It was as if her voice was coming out of a cloud—a very dark cloud. "I think you're wrong, Becca. You're not going to find yourself by running from what we have. People spend whole lives looking for what we've been given. How can you walk away from that?"

"I think that's my whole point, Zach. It's too big and powerful; it's more than I'm ready for."

Zach was empty of words; he felt like he was empty of life.

"I need to figure this out for myself, Zach. Please give me that chance."

Zach watched her unmoving in awful shadow, the voice out of the cloud now silent.

She reached in her coat pocket then leaned forward and put something on the coffee table. She turned and left.

From where he sat, her back—her golden hair, her brown canvas coat, her jeans, the heels of her clogs—was perfectly clear for that instant before the door shut in her wake. In the new stillness, he noticed the key she'd left on the table glinting in the sun.

The next morning—the weather still brilliantly clear and bitterly cold—Zach knocked on her apartment door holding a grapefruit in his hand. His hope was they might split the grapefruit and talk over that simple meal in her space, a space where she might feel more comfortable and open to compromise.

She opened the door, wide awake and frowning.

He said. "Can we talk?"

She shook her head. "I need space. Please let me have it." She shut the door.

He stood in front of her door a moment then turned and walked toward the parking lot. Halfway to his truck, he remembered the grapefruit in his hand. He wondered what he'd do with the other half.

The Party

Zach saw Becca through the window as he was walking up the drive to Professor Reichart's house in winter early dark. She was already at the party—a casual dinner buffet for their German drama class hosted by their teacher at his home a short distance from campus—and, being Becca, already engaged in friendly conversation with some of their classmates. Zach winced at the sight, stopped in the middle of the drive, and considered turning to leave. Herr Reichart, whom Zach considered a friend as well as teacher, would be disappointed by his absence; but Zach could fabricate some believable excuse and offer a conciliatory gesture in return—he had an early twentieth-century copy of Rilke's Advent that he'd already decided to give to Herr Reichart at the end of term; he could move that gesture forward by two months. Such maneuvering, while awkward, would surely be preferable to spending a long evening watching Becca work her magic on others while being excluded from those charms himself. The sight of her in this social setting vividly recalled the pain, never far from the surface, that he endured in honoring her request for a pause, some time off from their active involvement to "find herself" and reestablish her identity independent of Zach. This pause, reluctantly agreed to by Zach (what else was he to do?), had not gotten any easier in the three weeks since it had been implemented. And this party would be their first social engagement together since stepping back from the searing fire of their relationship.

But there in Herr Reichart's dark drive, Zach took a deep breath and decided that he was strong enough and mature enough to handle the challenges inherent in this occasion. He was not aware of, or at least did not consciously acknowledge, a more perverse motivation for continuing up the hill to the party—he craved being in her presence, even if at some physical and emotional remove, even at the price of significant pain.

As it turned out, there was no pain for Zach to endure, and virtually no awkwardness. After a stiff nod in Becca's direction (and her smiling response) on entering the spacious and airy living room with its cathedral ceilings, Zach got caught up in the party kept lively and stimulating by their scraggly bearded, rotund, boisterous, and ribald host. Herr Reichart was a refreshingly irreverent and unorthodox teacher in class, and he raised these characteristics to a gloriously higher level in the familiar environs of his home and fueled by the large doses of top-quality cabernet he downed while holding court. He managed to tread the fine line between overwhelming (and ultimately boring) his rapt student audience and lingering too long to let them catch up (thus letting the conversation lag). He tread this fine line by engaging all the students at the party in some aspect of the conversation, not letting anyone opt out; to this end, he leaned especially heavily on Zach to provide a foil to his flamboyance, a straight man for his theatrics. Zach happily complied, glad for the distraction and this chance to shine in Becca's witness.

So the evening passed quickly and pleasantly in a mix of good food—some well-prepared German delicacies including Wiener schnitzel and Linzertorte alongside other international specialties including hummus, tabboulleh, and pepperoni pizza—a little wine, and stimulating conversation. Before Zach knew it (and well before he would've chosen), the other students began retrieving their coats from the guestroom bed and heading for the door, most of them no doubt pointed toward other parties (and less encumbered alcohol consumption) on this mid-semester Saturday night, still so young and teeming with possibility. For his part, Zach had no idea where he might go next. His only known prospect—his dark and lonely apartment—had little to recommend it. The mid-term paper and poems in progress he was working on would be ascetic fare after this sumptuous party. But what other options did he have?

So as he emerged from the bedroom with his coat, the last to leave, he was surprised to see Becca lingering in the hallway leading to the entry foyer—surprised to see her still here and even more surprised to realize he'd totally forgotten about her in the joviality of the evening. He couldn't help but wonder how much of this mix of feelings his face betrayed on looking up and seeing her there. But then this was Becca—two short strides ahead and looking up at him with a tilted head and a cautious smile. That was all it took to melt away his surprise, his ambivalence, his cool reserve. This was Becca after all, after all.

They didn't speak but walked down the hallway, she in front. Herr Reichart stood in the tile foyer, having just closed the door on the prior departees. On seeing Zach and Becca, he launched a huge smile accompanied by a shout of glee in their direction. He raised his arms, a little wine sloshing out of the glass in his right hand, and exclaimed, "The Golden Couple!"

Becca blushed but had the instinctive grace to nod thanks for the sincere compliment.

Zach said, "Just two grateful guests, Herr Reichart."

Reichart lowered his arms and frowned above his scraggly beard. "Trouble in paradise?"

"No trouble," Zach said. "And no paradise either—not here on earth, or anywhere else for that matter. Haven't you read your German philosophers?"

Reichart scoffed loudly. "A gloomy lot! You've got to look past their siren call of existential angst."

Zach roared in laughter at the sheer audacity of this sweeping claim. For a brief moment he considered dropping his coat on the foyer table, asking Herr Reichart to uncork another bottle of wine, and sitting down at the still well-provisioned dining room table to engage this German Rasputin in a long night of one-on-one repartee. But then he remembered Becca, caught a whiff of her hair in the close confines of the foyer. He turned to Reichart. "There may be no paradise, but this evening came as close as one might expect to get. Thank you very much for inviting us." Zach surprised himself with the sincerity of his gratitude.

Reichart took a half step back, put his arms behind him, stiffened his shoulders, and made a deep formal bow from his waist. "Herr Sandstrom, Frau Coles—you are most graciously welcome."

Zach and Becca both nodded, though not nearly so deeply or formally, then awkwardly shook his fleshy hand as they walked past and out the door.

They were halfway down the drive and beyond the reach of the house's floodlights before either spoke. "He's something," Becca said finally.

"Quite a character."

"Where's he get his passion?"

"Teaching is his whole life," Zach said.

They'd reached the narrow and quiet residential street. Becca's car was on the far side, directly across from the drive. Zach's truck was about fifty yards away to the right. Becca paused in the drive. Zach wondered if she were waiting for him to turn toward his truck. "I can at least see you safely to your car, can't I?" he asked.

Becca laughed. "It's allowed."

Zach led the way across the deserted road, then stood to one side next to the driver's door and waited.

Becca followed and came alongside the car but didn't extend her hand to the door's handle. She turned and faced Zach in the faint glow from the streetlight farther down the hill. "Where are you headed?"

Zach tried to ignore the possible double meaning of her question, a double meaning that he knew originated in his head, not her question. "Home, I guess—no other plans. You?"

Becca looked at the ground, nudged something—a twig? a leaf?—with the toe of her clog. Then she looked at him. "Zach, I've missed you."

Zach didn't know what to say. All of his recent vulnerability and pain flowed in to fill the silence.

Becca took a small step toward him but left a few inches between her and any part of his body. "I've really missed you."

Zach shivered the length of his body. Becca must've seen but gave no sign.

"So can I come by your apartment for a little while?" she asked.

Zach nodded. "Follow me there," he said, then turned to walk to his truck, fumbling for his keys in the darkness.

He pulled his truck into one of the empty spaces alongside his building and Becca parked her car in the next space over. They walked side by side not touching down the path and up the stairs and along the second-floor breezeway to the door of his apartment. Zach put the key in the lock and turned the knob and the door swung open. Just as quickly, his hand reached out and slid under her open field coat and around her waist and pulled her against his body. She wrapped both arms around his waist and hugged him with all her strength. His lips found the crown of her head, cascaded down over her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, cheeks, ear, found her open mouth. They kissed with panting desperation, trying to find in lips, tongues, teeth and breaths some release, any release, to weeks of stored longing. Becca's hands slid under Zach's bomber jacket, yanked his shirt out of his pants waist, pressed her fingers against the bare skin of his back, dug her fingers and nails into his skin, ground and pressed and grabbed his skin. Zach slid her sweater up, then her blouse, slid his hands under her belt and beneath the waist of her jeans and under the band of her panties. Becca arched her back and his hands slid down over the small of her back and then around the sides and over her hips and then to the warm creases of skin leading downward. Zach pulled his hands from the waistline of her jeans, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her off the breezeway's concrete. She wrapped her legs around his waist and linked her feet at the ankles behind him. They panted hard into each other's mouths. Zach turned and carried her into the apartment and kicked the door shut behind them. He knelt on the carpeted floor of his living room, his arms still around her, her legs still around him. He gently, carefully leaned her back onto the carpet, bringing her to rest on the floor, his elbows on either side of her waist bearing his weight. Only then did their lips part, their common breaths slow, their eyes open for the first time since Zach had opened the door.

And in the diffuse light leaking through and around the shabby curtains drawn across the room's lone window, Zach saw in the beautiful young woman wide-eyed and smiling and fully clothed beneath him what he'd known so well before their separation and never for one minute forgot in the weeks of pain and confusion—there would never be, could never be, anyone more perfect for him. What's more, looking up at him, in this moment and for the first time, Becca felt exactly the same way about him.

So, over the next two hours, and contrasted with their frenzied lust-filled entry into the apartment, they joined in a slow, methodical, and exquisitely gentle and tender and solicitous uniting, every touch all the more impassioned for its attention to pleasing the other, every act and word and gesture fueled by the single goal of fusing their bodies into a physical manifestation of the perfection each saw in the other, the perfection they saw in their love. In the slow disrobing of each by the other, in the wandering and lingering kisses and licks that each offered the other's body, in the cooing and the avowals and the giggles and the moans and the laughter, in the eventual and inevitable and inexorable merging of one flesh into the other and in the deliciously slow but determined climb to a final dissolution and the breathless graceful glide back to earth—in this instinctive sequence of myriad actions and intentions that was finally a single action and intention, in all these seconds and minutes and hours of gifts given, gifts received that was but one prolonged instant's gift, both given and received, they found the physical embodiment of their love, their most ancient longing, now granted never to be taken away.

Becca shivered despite Zach's warmth. He reached behind him and pulled the afghan off the couch and draped it across her shoulders and waist and hips.

"Thanks," she said, and lay there for a while catching her breath, slowly regaining her senses.

Zach glanced around the room. From this vantage point and in this light, it all looked very unfamiliar—like a stranger's house or a motel room.

Becca followed his gaze then kissed him on the cheek. "The company's perfect, but I can't say much for the setting."

Zach laughed and rapped on the plywood beneath the shag carpet laid without a pad. "Kind of a hard mattress."

Becca giggled. "Carpet burns?"

Zach nodded. "A few. And you?"

She laughed. "In places I wouldn't have thought possible."

Zach said, "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, silly. I caused more than you did."

"Sporting injury."

"Worth the price."

"Every bit."

"You hungry?" she asked.

"Starving."

"Me too. Let's go out and get something to eat."

They jumped up and put their clothes back on without switching on the light. Zach spent a minute trying to find his keys, then opened the door to discover them still hanging from the knob's lock. He sighed in mild wonder, as if finding some trinket from a bygone age. The keys still worked, though, as he proved by locking the door behind Becca. He followed her down the steps and to her car.

She paused and faced him from the driver's seat before starting the engine. "Have I told you how much I love you?" She well knew she hadn't, not in so many words.

Zach answered, "Yes, in about a thousand different ways."

She nodded thanks, then leaned across the console and said in a firm whisper, "Then add this one to the list—I love you, Zachary Taylor Sandstrom." She kissed him on the lips, holding that contact for several seconds before turning back and starting the car.

Zach's bottomless well of thanks got stuck in his throat, but he had no doubt she fully understood his permanent gratitude.

The Cellar Sports Bar was surprisingly busy for the late hour (or maybe because of it). A basketball game beamed in from the west coast played on the large-screen T.V.'s mounted on each wall. A cluster of undergraduates played pool at a table in the middle of the room, and another group gathered around a foosball table off to one side. Couples cuddled up in booths and snuggled together at tables. Music blared from the jukebox—the Knack's "My Sharona." The whole cave-like space pulsed with noise and sexual energy.

While most of the booths were occupied, Zach and Becca found an empty one off in the corner. They sat on opposite sides of the butcher-block table. They ordered a pitcher of beer and two burger platters from the bubbly and flirtatious waitress, a girl named Diane whom Zach had spent fifteen minutes chatting with at a frat party two weeks earlier, while in the throes of loneliness following Becca's request for time off. While nothing had come of that particular exchange, the possibility of future contact had remained open for them both. In taking their order, Diane gave no hint of that prior encounter, but suggestively brushed Zach's shoulder as she reached across the table to retrieve his menu. She turned and walked away.

Zach blushed and shrugged to Becca.

Becca shook her head but her smile never faltered. "An old friend, or a new one."

Zach shook his head firmly and leaned across the table. "No one but you."

Becca nodded. "I know."

Though Zach meant every syllable of his promise, meant them to a near reckless degree, he couldn't help but acknowledge a renewed sense of doubt and foreboding at their presence in this late-night, libido-driven swap den. He couldn't say if this foreboding originated from outside their relationship, pressing in; or from inside—a revival of the doubts and fears that had defined the start of the evening—pressing out. So he looked to the only one present offering any hope of guidance or reassurance, choosing to ignore for the moment the equally true parallel fact—that she was also the only one present capable rendering on him real pain and loss. "So how are you doing?" he asked.

"You mean since we last talked?"

He nodded.

"I'm good. I'm doing real well, Zach. I feel like I know who I am again, like I'm back on level ground."

"That's great."

"I also know now that the confusion I felt wasn't your fault. It was inside me. I didn't do a very good job of processing everything that was coming at me."

"From me."

"And from lots of other sources—my family, my friends, school, all of it. I got knocked down by the sheer magnitude of it all and had a little trouble standing back up and finding my bearings."

"But now you have?"

"Now I have." She held her arms out, palms up. "The new me."

At just that moment, Diane brought their pitcher of beer and two mugs. She looked Becca up and down then said, "Looks O.K."

Becca returned her stare and, without missing a beat, said, "Why thank you, dear."

Diane gave a sly grin, set the pitcher and mugs between them, and left.

Zach poured the two mugs full then raised his. "To the new Becca."

Becca raised hers. "And the old us."

They clicked plastic in the smoky air between them.

"So what about you?" Becca asked.

"Except for missing you—"

"I'm here now."

"—I've been fine. Classes are good. Writing is proceeding well enough. I'll be going with Barton to Rome over spring break."

"So that worked out?"

"Passport arrived last week; already got my tickets."

"That's wonderful, Zach. Are you excited?"

"I guess."

"That's great. I'm so jealous. What an opportunity." She raised her mug again. "To Zach in Rome—for a spectacular trip."

Zach tapped her mug with his, but with less than full enthusiasm. The trip was only two weeks away. He had been thinking of it as a good chance to distract him from missing Becca. Now he saw it as a cause for missing her more, a prolonged interruption to their newly revived relationship.

Becca saw his frown. "Don't worry, Zach. I'll be here when you get back."

Zach nodded and said, "I'll be counting on it," but with less than complete conviction.

Becca smiled mischievously. "That is, unless you return with some pretty ragazza stowed in your suitcase." (She'd had two years of Italian at UNC.) She reached under the table and gently squeezed his thigh. "You wouldn't do that to me would you, Darling?" She leaned forward and kissed him, lightly brushing his lower lip with her teeth.

Diane arrived with their food, set it on the table, and said, "Looks like you already have plenty to eat."

Becca, her hand still on Zach's thigh, winked at him then turned to her and said, "Never enough."

Diane left in a huff.

Zach and Becca ate their food in silence, each choosing for their own reasons to put past and future aside and bask in the fresh glow of contentment, surrounded by but delightedly immune to the frenzied sexual gamesmanship playing itself out in the bar.

Later that night—now become early Sunday morning—they added to that contentment, built their defensive wall of bliss still higher, by joining their bodies again, in Zach's rudimentary bed this time, wrapped in his sheets and blankets, in each other's arms and legs, finding in their quest this time neither desperate longing nor grace-filled perfection but instead discovered an old open-eyed, open-hearted merging of all each had to offer, food enough to keep their famished souls sated at least till morning, maybe beyond.

Whiteout

Becca and Zach shared a light meal of lentil stew, oil-and-vinegar cole slaw, and sliced rye bread at Zach's apartment on Saturday evening one week after their reunion following Professor Reichart's party. They weren't supposed to be together. Becca'd planned to spend the weekend at her family's home in Greensboro but had cancelled those plans that morning after hearing of an approaching snowstorm that might prevent her from getting back to campus for Monday classes. After changing her plans, Becca'd tracked Zach down at his work-study job in the Archives Department of the library and asked if she could stop by and see him that evening. Zach's schedule was open and he was delighted at this unexpected chance to spend time with her. "Come by around seven," he'd said. "I'll make us a light supper."

So here they were, eating that meal at Zach's tall butcher-block table while seated on wooden stools with short backs. They'd not been together in private since their impassioned reunion a week earlier, and their occasional public encounters had been friendly but stiff, as each tried to ascertain the ground rules of their relationship going forward. That undercurrent of uncertainty persisted now that they were again alone together.

"So a week from today you'll be in Rome," Becca said.

"Actually, a week from tomorrow. We leave on Saturday afternoon, but don't land in Rome till Sunday morning."

"Are you excited?"

Zach looked up from his stew. "I guess." The table was long but narrow, so her smiling face was barely a foot away. Zach wondered how someone so close at hand could be so far away.

She closed that narrow distance with her free hand and lightly brushed his neck. "Zach, come on. This is Rome you're talking about. Everybody, myself included, would kill to spend spring break there."

Zach nodded and tried to smile. "I'm sure I'll be glad once I'm there."

"The Colosseum, St. Peter's, the Trevi Fountain."

Zach laughed. "I'll send you a postcard."

"How about an in-person delivery?"

"I can do that—probably faster than the mail anyway. What about you—figure out your Break plans yet?"

"Oh, yes. While you're touring Rome I'll be chasing Katie around the house. Sarah has classes all week and two papers due and is leaning on dear old sis for some baby-sitting time—the sacrifices one makes for family." Becca offered up an extended sigh and an exaggerated pout.

"Katie's sweet. You'll have fun."

"I guess. But compared to Rome, or even Myrtle Beach?" Myrtle Beach was where her roommate and some of her friends were headed for their Break.

Zach nodded. "Family sacrifice."

They finished their meal and Becca hand-washed their few dishes and utensils in the sink while Zach dried them and put them away. As they finished and Becca was draining the sink and wiping it clean with the sponge, Zach threw his drying towel over his shoulder and reached around and gave Becca a hug from behind, resting his head on her shoulder and kissing her neck.

Becca leaned back against his body and pushed her head and neck against his mouth.

Zach whispered in her ear, "I'm so glad you're not in Greensboro tonight."

Becca spun around, still in his arms, and faced him from inches away. "I'm so glad I'm here with you."

Zach stared into those beautiful eyes and found there the love and reassurance he'd been longing for all week. Any doubts or reservations or fear of renewed hurt flowed out of him, down the drain just as surely as that dishwater. This was the old Becca—his, all his. He ran his hands lightly up and down her sides.

Becca kissed him lightly on the mouth then said, "Let's go out."

Zach shrugged. "O.K. Where?"

"On campus. Aren't they showing the game tonight?" The school's basketball team was playing in the conference tournament final in Raleigh. If they won, they'd be in the NCAA Tournament. The game was being broadcast on closed-circuit T.V. on campus.

Zach nodded. "I think they've got a big screen T.V. at The Inn." The Inn was a student hangout best known for its late-night food and its pitchers of beer available for purchase with meal tickets. You (and your friends) could drink all night and charge it off to your parents, with the charges listed simply as "on-campus food and drink."

"Let's go cheer our team on."

It'd started snowing steadily while they were inside eating. When they emerged to head up to campus, there was about an inch of fluffy snow on the ground with more falling. The air was very cold and the wind blew briskly. They navigated the open stairs with care, taking one step at a time and holding onto the handrail and each other. But once on ground level, they ran along the sidewalk and skated on the smooth blanket of snow, interspersing long hyphens among their ellipses of footprints. There were no other tracks on the sidewalk or in the parking lot, and only one set of tire tracks on the road in front of the apartment.

Zach's truck, light in the rear end and bulky, was impossible to maneuver in slippery conditions. But Becca had her sister's Japanese import which, with its short wheel base and front-wheel drive, was well suited for driving in snow. Still, Becca stood in front of her snow-coated car and said, "Maybe we ought to stay in."

Zach laughed. "You southerners—all afraid of a little snow. We'll be fine."

"You sure? Sarah'd kill me if I wrecked her car."

Zach laughed and grabbed a fistful of snow and tossed it on her head. "You're taking care of Katie next week, remember? Sarah owes you."

"Zach, I'm serious. I don't want to damage her car."

"Listen, if we get stuck, I can pick this thing up and get us out." He was only half joking—in high school, he and two friends had picked up the Volkswagen Beetle of a mean-spirited teacher and left it wedged between two tree trunks.

"O.K., but you're driving." She tossed him the keys then began to brush the snow off the Honda with the sleeve of her coat.

Zach said, "I'll protect Sarah's car with my life."

They made it up the hill to campus with no problem at all. There were no other cars on the road to worry about, and the little car's front-wheel-drive tires never slipped once. When they'd come to a stop in the deserted parking lot behind the Chapel, Zach patted the dash and said, "Our trusty Japanese Jeep." Then they dove out into the snow-sprinkled dark.

The campus was eerily quiet for a mid-semester Saturday night, with the wind-blown snow accentuating the uncommon emptiness. Many students had travelled the short distance to Raleigh in car pools and at least two chartered busses to attend the tournament finals. Most of the rest were in dorm rooms, commons rooms, and bars watching the game on T.V. Wherever they were, they weren't out in the snowy dark; and Zach and Becca felt, as they walked through the untrodden snow from the Chapel parking lot to the Inn, that this night was all theirs, an unexpected gift for them to take and use.

The Inn was unusually quiet as well, with fifty or so students scattered around long wooden tables that would've accommodated ten times that many. The long, narrow room's lofty walnut-stained cathedral ceiling with its exposed rafters and carved arch supports and clerestory windows revealing the snow swirling in the darkness beyond only further emphasized the sparse and quiet attendance. While others might've considered this dearth of company and noise boring or unsettling, Zach and Becca were secretly pleased to be on campus on a Saturday night and in the presence of others without having to deal with the demands and noise more typical of the location and the time of week. They'd be able to carve out their own little world within this quiet environment. The game, already more than halfway through the first half, was being projected onto a large screen mounted on the wall at the end of the hall. Zach and Becca staked their claim at an empty table just past the midpoint of the hall and sat in the two chairs closest to the wall and facing the screen. They ordered a pitcher of beer and watched the game. The game was hotly contested and intense, with the two teams exchanging the lead frequently throughout the first half.

And it was there—in that most impersonal and mundane of settings, surrounded by a smattering of indifferent or oblivious witnesses, brought here by an improbable mix of circumstances, on a night when they shouldn't have even been together—it was there that Zach and Becca found their perfect harmony, the long sought but heretofore unrealized merging of all their hopes and care and love. No, they hadn't found it; it had found them, been bestowed as gift: all they had to do was partake of its joys and wonders.

Zach, sitting closer to the wall and a little behind Becca, reached out with his free hand and idly brushed her beautiful long blond hair still damp with melted snow. Becca felt his touch as in a dream, the soft sensuous brushing both soothing and reassuring of protection and love. She rolled her head gently from side to side, closed her eyes, immersed herself in that touch. Zach, with part of his attention directed toward the game and the other people milling about the hall, was paradoxically all the more in tune with Becca's feelings and needs for not being totally focused on her, for not directing all his attention toward her, for simply reacting to her intuitively. Becca in turn was all the more responsive to his diluted attentions, knowing that she was not ignored—she'd never be ignored by Zach—but that she was not his sole focus and she was free to respond without expectation or inhibition. She loved that freedom. She loved Zach's total attention and devotion, but she also loved the freedom to respond to his attentions without worrying about her response. She wanted all these levels of love; here, for the first time, she had them.

Becca, never one for public displays of affection, slid out of her chair and onto Zach's lap. She fit quite well there, felt completely comfortable and at ease, straddling his left leg, leaning back lightly against his chest, resting her head in the notch between his shoulder and neck. Zach looped his free arm around her waist, squeezed her lightly, not too tightly, made her feel safe, made her feel wanted, made her feel caressed, made her feel free. All these gifts came in addition to feeling loved. She always felt loved by Zach.

They watched the game, drank their beer, and turned into a single seamless entity—a single flesh but more than a single flesh, a single spirit, a state of being neither had ever felt before or knew existed—without even knowing it'd happened.

As the game moved deeper into the second half, more students began arriving at The Inn. There was a growing sense of hope and excitement and anticipation at the possibility of their team completing a major upset and securing an improbable bid to the national tournament.

Caroline, Becca's roommate, came into the hall, spotted them, and came over and took a seat in Becca's former chair. "Don't you two look comfy."

"I am," Becca said, making no move to get off Zach's lap.

Caroline laughed. "You really look like you're in heaven, Becca. You ought to try that brand of relaxation more often. Better yet, give me some."

"No sharing. Talk to Michael."

"He's over there." She gestured toward the T.V. "With the team. I'm solo tonight."

"Then have a beer," Becca said. "That'll have to be your substitute till Michael gets home."

Caroline pushed her lip out in a pout. "No sharing Zach?"

Becca shook her head.

"O.K. I guess I'll just have to get drunk." She poured a full cup of beer and downed it in one long draught.

Becca said, "Well, maybe not that much beer."

They all laughed.

With less than four minutes to play and the game tied, the Badencourt gang showed up—C.H. and Bill and Arnie and a half-dozen of their dorm mates. Every seat at their table was suddenly filled, then another table was pushed against it and all those seats filled. Their pitcher of beer was emptied in a hurry, but it was replaced by three more pitchers, and soon those pitchers were empty and replaced by still more. Everyone was focused on the game. The timeouts and the frequent fouls made the last few minutes of game time stretch out for over fifteen minutes of clock time. The lead changed hands five times in those last four minutes. Then Avery went ahead by a point, 80 to 79, on two made free throws. There were twelve seconds left. The other team called a timeout.

The opponent would have one final shot, or possibly a shot and a chance at a rebound if the shot were missed. The entire season had come down to these final twelve seconds. If the other team scored, Avery's season, which had started with such promise then faltered badly toward the end, would be over. If the other team failed to score, Avery would win and go on to the national tournament. Everyone in the now nearly full hall was on their feet, waiting for the timeout to end and the game to resume. Everyone was on edge, holding their collective breath.

Everyone, that is, except Zach and Becca. They were buried in the crowd that had so suddenly appeared around them, Becca still sitting on Zach's lap who was sitting on the chair against the stone wall of the hall. They were not oblivious to the crowd or the game but thoroughly amused by it. They were not threatened by the sudden invasion of their semi-privacy but rather thrilled to be a part of this outpouring of hope and energy yet still somehow separate from it. In their private harmony, they could also be one with this crowd of singular hope and anticipation.

Becca pressed her lips to Zach's ear. "Let's watch."

Zach nodded. Becca stood on their chair to see the screen over the crowd. Zach stood beside her, his head against her shoulder, able to see the screen over the heads of the crowd.

The timeout ended and the ball was thrown in play. The opponent's best player got free after a series of screens and got the ball. He got free of his defender, was open at the top of the key, and launched a clear shot. The ball seemed to hang in the air for many seconds. It was right on line. It looked like it was going in. It was dead on target. But it was just a little short. The ball hit the front of the rim and bounded high into the air. It rose up as high as the top of the backboard then started to fall. The opponent's best rebounder was waiting there, at the front of the rim, in perfect position to tip the ball back into the basket. There were four seconds left, then three. The rebounder went up to complete the play, make the tip-in from mere inches away. It was hopeless. Avery was bound to lose. The ball fell toward the front of the rim. There were two seconds left. Then the opponent's best rebounder disappeared from his position in front of the rim, lost his balance and tumbled to the floor as an Avery player crashed into his legs. The ball fell past the rim, was not tipped in, bounced harmlessly on the pile of players sprawled across the floor. One second left, then zero—the buzzer sounded. Avery had won!

Every voice in the hall united in a single exuberant cheer. Beer cups, some full of beer, flew into the air. Hats and scarves and mittens and coats flew into the air. Becca jumped off the chair into Zach's arms. He held her around the hips and spun around in a circle, bumping into chairs, the wall, the table, all the people jumping and dancing everywhere around them. From her lofty spot above the crowd, Becca traded high-fives with Caroline, C.H., Bill. Everyone was cheering and jumping into each other's arms. Avery had won! Becca and Zach had watched it and shared in this corporate jubilation. The joy around them affirmed and magnified the perfect harmony they'd been granted. The crowd carried them along in its intoxicating energy and enthusiasm and ebullience.

And all that energy, too great for indoor confines, quickly spilled outdoors, sweeping Zach and Becca along with the tide. Four inches of dry, wind-blown, drifting snow now coated everything, with more steadily falling. Students, some of them shirtless, were running about the Quad, rolling in the snow, tossing each other into drifts. Firecrackers were popping. Music blared from speakers propped in open windows lining the Quad. Some fraternity brothers were trying to start a fire with wet, frozen branches. The smoke from the smoldering fire quickly dissipated on the brisk wind; but the odor lingered, giving the entire area the scent of a cabin in the woods. A long chain of students joined hands in the center of the Quad, at first forming a circle and chanting cheers. Then someone broke the chain and pulled a meandering line of revelers behind him into the snowy dark. Soon the former circle became the world's (or at least Avery's) longest ever whiplash line, with the chain of students undulating from one end to the other, the students at the far end of the line flung outward by powerful centrifugal forces—first five flying off into the snow, then ten, then twenty—till finally the whole line, even those not yet whiplashed, dove into the snow in the world's (or at least Avery's) largest ever pig pile.

Zach and Becca meandered through this boisterous crowd as in some sort of white-washed, deep-chilled fantasy—every sight and sound, smell and touch brilliantly vivid but also surreal in its utter lack of precedence or prior context. It was a moment and place cut out of time—a brittle fairyland populated by shrieking fauns and nymphs, a mid-winter night's dreamscape of youthful revelry. They wandered through this great spontaneous outdoor party sometimes hand-in-hand, sometimes pulled apart by strangers or friends grabbing them and swinging them about. Everybody in sight or earshot was of a single celebratory mindset, Zach and Becca included. Yet through this public celebration, they remained united in what they'd been given, what they held against all comers or claims.

With most of the revelers soon wet and frozen, and the would-be bonfire a smoldering mass of blackened branches and one charred frat-house bench, the victory party gradually moved back indoors to any number of venues. Zach and Becca followed the Badencourt gang into their dorm, where the cupboards full of booze were unlocked, the ice machines emptied, the glasses and mixers set out, and the music cranked up. The setting and most of the faces were familiar, but somehow everything was just a touch different than ever before—a tad fantastic, a wisp ethereal. Every face was flushed from the cold, hair peppered with snow then damp with melt, clothes and shoes soaked and quickly tossed aside and in some cases not replaced as guys and girls ran around barefoot and in their underwear, and at least two fraternity brothers shed even that bit of modesty. Zach and Becca also looked different—though they'd avoided the worst of the snow-coating, their faces were bright red, their hair glistening, and their eyes twinkling.

Once inside Badencourt, they never left each other's side, moving through the rooms and the crowds hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm or, for a little while, with Becca on Zach's shoulders. They moved from room to room, greeting and congratulating friends and strangers alike, toasting the team and the university, laughing at the unlikely scenes they stumbled on—coed body painting in the school's red and gold colors, quarters beer-drinking matches with red-dyed beer, and line-dancing to the school's fight song. Zach and Becca absorbed every wacky scene, made it their own, counted it as gift.

And then, with the party winding down and more than three-quarters of the participants asleep or passed out in random aggregations like flotsam washed up on a beach, they left without fanfare or farewells and stepped out into the night.

The campus was once again deserted and largely still, with the quiet only occasionally interrupted by a wolf howl or a firecracker's pop. It was still snowing, with six inches on the ground and deeper drifts. Fresh and wind-blown snow had partially filled the tracks and trenches and body prints from the earlier party, making those marks seem shadows from a dream.

Zach and Becca walked through the Quad and around the Chapel and along the buried walks to the dark and snow-flooded path through the trees to the parking lot. Artificial light faded the farther they got from the Quad and was gone entirely by the time they entered the thin woods between the Chapel and the lot. Yet it was not dark. The reflective snow and the low clouds and diffuse light from somewhere cast the woods in a silver-gray glow. They emerged from the woods and discovered the Honda as a hump of snow in the broad and flat plain of the parking lot. They brushed the snow off the car with their hands and arms, pushed it aside with their feet and legs. It was light snow and easy to clear away.

They climbed inside the car—Zach in the driver's seat—and sat for a moment in the cold, dry, close silence. The whole rich night and all its wonders washed over them like a wave. One might've guessed they'd be exhausted, but neither was. In fact, neither was ready to let the night end, regardless if the rest of the proximate world was asleep or on the way there.

Becca said, "I need to get some dry clothes from my apartment. You think you can get us there?"

Zach laughed, delighted to have a cause and purpose. "With our Japanese Jeep? No problem." He started the car, turned on the headlights, and followed their arc of light toward the main road.

The driving conditions wouldn't exactly qualify as no problem, but they weren't a big problem either. Zach drove slowly but steadily in low gear—never coming to a full stop, never applying the brakes, gliding through stop signs and traffic lights, not making any sudden turns or swerves. The car's tires spun a few times, especially in the deeper drifts, and slid off the road on one curve; but Zach always managed to compensate and keep the car moving forward.

The road to Becca's apartment went past the hospital and was partially plowed. They shared this four-lane road with a few police cars and ambulances with chains on their tires. Everyone was driving slowly and carefully, and they saw no accidents or abandoned cars along the way.

In the parking lot in front of Becca's dark apartment, she faced Zach and said, "Caroline may be asleep."

"Or with Michael."

Becca nodded. "Either way, maybe I should go in by myself. I won't have to turn on a light."

"I'll keep our Jeep warm."

She disappeared into the night.

Zach switched off the ignition and sat there in the dark with the cooling engine clicking and tiny streams of melting snow etching lines on the windshield against the silver night. For one of the few times in his life—perhaps the only time when immersed in an important moment—Zach did not consciously reflect on his present circumstance or the past events that had placed him here or the options for the future going forward. He knew only that Becca'd been here and that she would return. He waited in blank contentment, could've waited forever.

Becca returned in under fifteen minutes. She had on dry boots, a clean pair of jeans, and a dark blue down vest over a burgundy sweatshirt. She'd also found a white knit stocking cap and a pair of matching mittens buried in her closet. She slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

"A new woman," Zach said.

She leaned over and kissed him. "Just a dryer version of the former one."

Zach started the car. "Caroline home?"

Becca nodded.

"Alone?"

"Couldn't tell."

"Too close?"

Becca hit him with her mittened hand. "Too dark, Mr. Voyeur."

"Just concerned for her well-being."

"No doubt."

The car started sliding to one side where the parking lot sloped up to the road. Before Zach could stop and back up to try again, the car had slid off the pavement and into a deep drift. Zach tried rocking the car back and forth, in forward then reverse, but to no avail. For the first time that night, they were stuck, and with no one awake for miles to help them out.

Becca frowned.

"Don't worry, Bec. We'll get out. But you'll have to drive while I push."

"You sure? I can push."

Zach shook his head. "You're dry. I'm stronger. Let me be the macho man."

He got out of the car on his side, away from the worst of the drift. Becca slid into the driver's seat past the shift knob. Before shutting the door, he leaned back in and kissed her. "Just make sure you're not in reverse when you let the clutch out. Otherwise you might end up with a Zach pancake."

"Snow-covered?"

"With a cherry on top." He closed the door.

Becca put the car in first and waited for Zach's signal to let the clutch out.

Behind the car, Zach dug his feet into the snow till they touched the frozen ground, found the best footing available, put his hands under the bumper, and leaned against the back of the car. "Ready," he shouted.

Becca popped the clutch and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The front tires spun furiously, throwing loose snow along the sides of the car and up into the air. Zach pushed and released, pushed and released, rocking the car back and forth until the front tires had finally spun their way through the snow and reached the dirt below. The car suddenly lurched forward and Zach sprawled face down into what remained of the drift. Becca yanked the wheel to the left to avoid another snow drift on the far side of the drive. The car went into a slow motion double loop as it descended down the drive, finally coming to rest in the middle of the parking lot.

Becca jumped out of the car and ran over to Zach. "You O.K.?"

Zach was standing in the snowdrift, brushing snow and bits of grass and dirt thrown up by the racing tires from his brown bomber jacket. He grinned. "Never better. Nice driving, Richard Petty."

Becca pushed him playfully.

He fell backward into the snow.

She jumped on top of him. They were almost completely buried in the light snow. They could've stayed there forever—so joyful were they in each other and in the combination they formed—except it was cold. They stood, brushed each other off, and returned to the car. Zach, with a little more speed and the proper angle of approach, made it up the slope and into the road with no sliding this time.

The few vehicles that had been on the main road earlier were gone now, and they had all four lanes to themselves. They passed the entrance to the hospital (with no signs of life there either) and were driving along a stretch of highway with no buildings or businesses when they spotted a heavy-set woman stumbling in the deep snow mounded on the edge of their side of the road. Zach slowed down as the car came alongside her. They could see (when she lifted her foot high to take a step) that she had on slip-on shoes with no socks. She was dressed in light-weight knit slacks and a thin windbreaker with its hood pulled over her head.

Zach stopped the car next to her and Becca rolled down the window. "Can we give you a ride somewhere?"

The woman's round face was flushed. She breathed heavily and sweat beaded on her brow despite the cold and her light clothing. She took a minute to catch her breath before speaking. "I'll be O.K.," she said finally. She took another breath. "I'm walking back to the hotel."

The only hotel on this road was more than a quarter mile away. She'd never make it—not in her condition in these conditions. Becca said, "Get in. We'll drive you. It's too nasty to be out tonight."

The woman looked ahead along the deserted highway, hazy in the blowing snow, then faced them. "You don't mind?"

"Not at all," Becca said, then opened the door and slid over toward Zach to make room, ended up sitting half on the car's console and half in Zach's lap. She leaned her face into Zach's ear and whispered, "You don't mind, do you?"

"I don't mind." He kissed her near cheek. "But you have to stay here after we drop her off."

The woman stumbled out of the snow bank and grabbed the door to keep from falling. She paused again to catch her breath. Then, with much effort and maneuvering, she got turned around and sat down back first on the seat, then pulled her legs into the car one at a time. Once all her parts were inside the car, she took another minute to catch her breath then slammed the door shut. That action rippled all the way across the car, squishing them together and leaving Becca almost entirely on Zach's side of the middle console.

Becca asked, "Can you drive?"

Zach laughed. "I can steer and probably manage the clutch and the brakes. But the shift lever is all yours."

She nodded. "Just say when."

Zach said, "Let's start with first gear and go from there."

Becca pushed the shift knob into first with only a little grinding of metal, and Zach let the clutch out and they moved slowly forward. Rather than take a chance on shifting, Zach drove the whole way to the hotel in the creeping first gear.

The woman, still huffing and puffing, said little during their three-minute ride to the hotel. She muttered something about walking to the convenience store to get snacks, but the nearest convenience store was a half-mile in the other direction and had been closed for hours. The woman offered no further explanation of her plight and they didn't ask for one.

The hotel's covered drop-off was an oasis of light and dry pavement. Zach parked in front of the entry doors and got out and walked around to help the woman. She took his hand and he tugged her out of the low and tight confines of the passenger seat. In the short ride, her breathing had calmed and her face was less sweaty though still flushed. She was, however, still very shaky on her feet. So Zach offered her his arm, which she accepted; and they walked together across the sidewalk and up to the doors. They discovered that the doors were locked and had to ring the bell to wake the sleeping desk clerk. The gray haired man made his way slowly to the doors, turned the deadbolt, and pushed open one of the doors. "We wondered if you'd ever come back," he said to the woman.

The woman made no reply and didn't even acknowledge the desk clerk. She released Zach's arm and walked through the door and across the entry and around the corner out of sight without a word or glance back.

Zach looked at the desk clerk. "Found her stumbling through the snow just this side of the hospital."

The clerk shook his head. "I told her not to go out. But it's a free country."

Zach shrugged. "Free country." He turned to leave.

The clerk said, "Have a nice night, what's left of it."

Zach waved over his shoulder.

Becca was back in the passenger seat when he slid behind the wheel. "Any explanation?" she asked.

"Free country," Zach said.

Becca looked puzzled. "Free to die alone in the snow in the middle of the night?"

"Or get rescued by nocturnal wanderers."

"Thanks for stopping, Zach."

"Didn't want her death on our conscience."

Becca laughed. "That too."

The turn-off to Zach's apartment was just a little farther down the road. But when they got to it, Zach coasted right past the turn, continuing straight on the main road. Neither had spoken since the hotel, and neither spoke now. This night, which was fast waning, had fully embraced them; and they weren't quite ready to surrender the feast.

So they drove slowly and steadily through the snow and the dark the two miles to where the road ended at another highway. There Zach made a wide turn in the middle of the intersection and headed back the way they'd just come. The whole way they saw no other car or person or living creature. The houses and businesses they passed were all dark. The intermittent woods were silent and still. Surely life continued somewhere—maybe behind those darkened windows, maybe in those solemn woods. But for all they could see or tell or feel, the snow-bound world belonged to them and they to it, a two-part entity full engaged in reciprocal praise and thanks.

When they came back to the road to his apartment, Zach turned this time. This road was a steep hill sloping down all the way to his apartment building far below, invisible in the blowing snow. Zach switched off the car's engine and turned off its lights. They coasted silently down the hill, the deep soft fluffy snow pushed harmlessly away to either side. The apartment building came into view, looming up out of the snow like a great ship in the fog. They coasted past the end of the building, then turned left to coast along the front where the road ran level, then left again into the parking lot and still coasting into a spot next to the walk, two up from Zach's snow-shrouded truck. The car's momentum would've carried them a little further, but not the night's. Behind the clouds and the wind-blown snow, dawn approached.

They were home. It was time for bed and whatever new stasis they could carve out from the aftermath of this blessed night.

### Part III

Sad Eyes

Zach knew the minute he opened the door and saw her, the doubts were back. Her eyes were too honest, his heart too vulnerable, for him to miss a fact so plain. He tried to dismiss the foreboding as the result of travel fatigue and nervousness at this long-anticipated reunion. She was here, after all, as she'd promised. Wasn't that proof enough of her love and commitment? She smiled hesitantly and stepped up into his living room. He pushed the door shut then folded her into his arms. She pressed her face into his chest, her hands still at her sides. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head. They stayed like that for a long time.

It was 10 PM on Sunday, March 16. Zach and Barton had waked twenty hours earlier to a clear and warm spring morning in Rome. After coffee with Monsignor Sposito at their hotel, they'd been driven to Da Vinci International Airport and spent the rest of their day in airports and in the air from Rome to New York, New York to North Carolina. Zach had arrived at his apartment twenty minutes earlier and called Becca even before taking off his coat. She'd been waiting for his call all night and had driven straight over after grabbing a few clothes and toiletries and stuffing them into her book bag.

After his long and stressful day, after an enjoyable but tiring week, Zach would've been happy to stand there wrapped around Becca till they could stand no longer, then simply lie down where they were and go to sleep in each other's arms. This embrace had been all he'd thought about, when he'd had time to let his mind drift, for the ten days since he'd seen her last. Now claimed, he didn't want to let it go.

But he was worried about Becca—worried about what he'd seen in her eyes, worried about her face pressed so desperately into his chest. He would protect her forever, but thought he needed to know what he was protecting her from—having forgot, just that fast, he already had his answer.

He kept his arms around her but leaned his torso back from her face. At first she leaned into his retreat, kept her face pressed against his flannel shirt. Finally she reneged, stood straight up, granted a few inches of space between her face and his chest.

"You O.K.?" Zach asked.

At first she wouldn't look at him then she did. Her eyes were so sad, seemed lost. "I missed you too much, Zach."

"I missed you that much and more."

She shook her head in resignation. "No, you didn't."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are. That's one thing I know for sure."

"Can I help?"

"Can we go to bed and you just hold me?"

"Till the cows come home."

"How about till we fall asleep?"

"Whichever comes first."

Becca looked up at him and offered her best effort at a smile. It was more than enough to lift his heart. "Thank you, Zach." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Welcome home."

"Wish I'd never left."

"Me too." She slid past him to put on her pajamas, brush her teeth, slide into bed. He followed after she'd finished.

In the darkest moment of that dark late-winter night, with Zach and Becca both sound asleep and still in each other's arms, facing each other inches apart on their separate pillows, their legs twined under the blankets, their feet touching lightly, their breaths rising and falling in unison—God stood over them. He loved them both, knew them well. Before time and the universe, he'd willed each into being. He'd watched them grow in separate spheres, both strong and smart and sensitive. He'd seen the approach of their intersection from far off and blessed it, even (and this against his own rules) gave their headlong rush toward each other a few gentle nudges, rare gifts of hope and promise. He reveled in their union, their moments of transcendent love—of his heart but not of his willing: they'd discovered or stumbled into that joy on their own, reaped its rewards. Nor had he willed this looming fracture. But he mourned it, cradled it in his heart of infinite suffering.

But he wasn't here to mourn—there'd be time enough for that. He stood here to gaze one last time at the perfect harmony this pair shaped, at their union of flesh and sense and spirit—gift for them, gift for him—that was the latest return of the love he'd sent forth at the dawn of time. He could only hope for them that this vision of perfection survived the coming discord—he could do no more. Then he left his beloved children locked in their last touch of divine love.

Becca rose first, showered, and dressed for class. She'd already made herself tea and toasted an English muffin when Zach walked into the kitchen in his underwear. He rubbed his eyes and tried to get himself awake. "What time is it?"

Becca laughed at the helpless vulnerable child in a man's body standing before her. She rarely saw Zach helpless—the sight was charming. "Eight o'clock, sleepyhead."

"Feels like I slept ten years."

"More like ten hours. It's called jet-lag, Zach. You'll get over it. Hey, it's two o'clock in Rome—already lunch time."

Zach turned and trudged back into the dim bedroom. "Call me for supper," he said and lay back down on the bed.

A few minutes later, Becca knelt on the floor beside the bed. "I'm off to the library. I need to do some research before class." She leaned over and kissed him then stood.

"See you tonight?" he asked, his words muffled by the pillow.

"Sure," she said. "But I can't spend the night."

He was too tired to protest or ask why.

She headed out into the bright new day.

Zach finally rose for good around noon. A long hot shower washed away whatever fog lingered over his senses. By the time he'd shaved and dressed, he felt close to normal, if still a bit disoriented about the time of day. He ate a light lunch and unpacked from the trip. He checked his mailbox, stuffed full with a week's leavings—all bills except a small envelope addressed in Becca's hand and bearing a Greensboro postmark from the middle of last week. He tore it open while standing barefoot on the cold concrete slab in front of the building's bank of mailboxes.

The envelope contained a small folded sheet of pale green, rough-cut fine linen paper with no initials or markings on the face. Inside in steep sloping script it read: Where are you? I can't stand this. B. Zach wanted to cry and sing-out both. Instead he slipped the note back into its envelope and jogged up the stairs to his apartment.

He paid the oldest bills and addressed and stamped the envelopes. He pulled a bowl of beef burgundy, the leftovers from a dinner party he'd hosted for several professors and their wives a few weeks before Rome, out of the freezer to thaw. He made a short grocery list then headed out the door to run by the bank, the post office, and the supermarket. He returned late in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day preparing for dinner. He set his bar-table with a linen tablecloth, his best two plates (the only ones that weren't chipped), his utilitarian stainless silverware shined as best he could, two wine glasses, a single candle in a small glass holder, and a daffodil he'd picked from the edge of the parking lot in a juice-glass vase. He clumsily wrapped Becca's gifts from Rome in a double layer of white tissue paper. He spent a few minutes sprucing up the living room and its upholstered chair and couch. He then changed into a pair of dark dress pants and a neat if well-worn light blue shirt. By the time Becca tapped at the door shortly after dark, he had his feet solidly planted on North Carolina turf and his heart tightly bound in love.

He opened the door and she stepped into the room with a bulging book bag over her right shoulder and a stack of a half-dozen books cradled in her left arm and tucked against her chest. She dropped the stack of books on Zach's coffee table and he helped her slide the heavy book bag off her shoulder. She wore baggy gray sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt over a white T-shirt with its crewneck collar showing above the sweatshirt. Her long blond hair, still damp from a shower, was woven into a single braid tied at the tip with a rubber band. Wisps of hair had worked loose from the braid and the hair pulled tightly over her ears and head, giving her the appearance of one busy but not quite harried, radiating grace through stress. Her appearance reminded Zach of Botticelli's Zipporah, daughter of Jethro the Midiannite, from the Moses Cycle fresco on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, the image of all the myriad artworks he'd seen in Rome that had held his attention the longest, and for obvious reason. Becca could've donned a queen's robes or Cinderella's gown of finest satin and he would've found her no more lovely than she was at that moment.

Becca slid off her field coat and dropped it on the couch then turned to Zach. "I'm beat."

"Long day for you."

"You don't know the half of it."

"Sit down. Rest."

She flopped down on the couch. "But only for a minute," she said. "Too much work to do."

"Some wine?"

"No way—I'd be asleep in two minutes."

"Tea then?"

"That sounds great."

When Zach returned with the cup of hot tea, she was curled up on the couch asleep. He knew she'd be furious if he let her sleep, but he took a moment to gaze down on the loveliest sight he'd ever seen or ever would see, the beginning and end of his life's search. Then he set the cup on the coffee table, knelt beside the couch, and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She opened her eyes inches from his. "My prince," she whispered and smiled.

"I wish I could've let you sleep."

She grinned. "You know when the best time for sleep is?"

He nodded and they said in unison, "Later."

She sat up, cradled the teacup between her two hands, and sipped it lightly. "Thanks, Zach."

He sat in the armchair that was perpendicular to the end of the couch, retrieved the three gifts from the end table, and handed them to her.

"You shouldn't have."

"I should have and did."

She opened the first. It was a hardcover copy of a Henry James novel, The Europeans, in Italian. Becca opened the book and laughed loudly, the best sound Zach had heard since returning home. "How am I going to read this?"

"You've had two years of Italian."

"Maybe good for ordering dinner, but reading a novel? Henry James?" She laughed again.

"A challenge," Zach said. "So when we go together, you can take care of me."

"Well, when you put it like that—." She set the book aside.

The second gift was a silk scarf in a burgundy paisley print. "This is gorgeous."

"The nicest I could afford, from a boutique in Piazza Navonna."

"Thank you, but you better not have spent your lunch money."

"Spam from now on."

Then she opened the small box. It contained a two-inch tall crucifix—a silver Jesus hanging from a walnut cross. She held it to the light of the table lamp.

"From the gift shop at the top of the Dome of St. Peter's," Zach said. "And blessed by the Pope."

Becca nodded. "I can use all the help I can get."

"That'll bring it."

She set the gifts and the crumpled paper to one side, rose and took one step toward Zach, and sat on his lap. "Thank you, Prince." She kissed him and hugged his face.

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

"Give me about ten minutes."

Becca slid off his lap and back to the couch. "I'll polish off this James novel while I wait."

"There will be a test, all in Italian, later tonight."

"I'll be ready," Becca replied; but she was already unpacking her book bag to work on her History thesis.

When he called Becca to the table, the lights of the kitchen were off and the table's lone candle lit, the wine glasses were full (Becca's with ice water, his with French burgundy leftover from making the entrée weeks before), and the food—beef burgundy over noodles and steamed broccoli tossed in fresh lemon juice on warmed plates, tossed salad on salad plates, and crusty French rolls in a bread basket—was carefully and lovingly arranged at the two place settings.

Becca standing in the entry to the kitchen gasped at the sight. "Zach, what did you do?"

He laughed. "For you," then added, "and for me." He thought a moment then said, "For us."

"I feel so under-dressed."

"Not in Zach's Restaurant." He came around to her side of the table and pulled out the stool for her to sit, which she did with a grace befitting the setting.

Becca said, "What did I do to deserve this? What did I do to deserve you?"

Zach smiled. "Let me show you something I learned in Rome." He retrieved a saucer from the kitchen counter and in the candlelight put a sprinkle of salt in the middle then added a stream of olive oil from a flask at the far end of the table then poured alongside the oil a small amount of wine vinegar from a matching flask. He took two narrow-tined forks, wedged the handle of one between the first and second fingers of his right hand and the handle of the other between the third and fourth fingers, and proceeded to rapidly spin the paired forks in the oil and vinegar on the plate. His hand spun so fast that the tines of the forks were a blur. He stopped spinning the forks and added some coarsely ground black pepper and some freshly grated parmesan cheese from finger bowls on the counter then resumed spinning the forks in the mixture. About a minute later, he set the forks on the counter and held the saucer in the candlelight for Becca's inspection. The mix of distinct ingredients had become a homogenized salad dressing.

"Voila," he said. "A cracked-pepper and parmesan vinaigrette for Mademoiselle." He poured half of it on Becca's salad and the balance on his. "Sorry about the French—a week in Rome and it's still the only Romance language I'll venture."

"That's amazing. Where'd you learn that?"

"At Il Passetto, the nicest restaurant we went to. We ate there twice. They have apprentice waiters that do nothing except prepare salad dressings to order at tableside. They have a cart with all sorts of things to add—minced anchovies, chopped scallions, ground hazelnuts, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, various mustards, several kinds of honey: you name it, they'll mix it into your dressing before your eyes."

"And they taught you?"

"Well, I watched carefully then taught myself this afternoon—with vegetable oil and cider vinegar. Just as well you missed the practice round—oil everywhere!"

"Well, I'm impressed."

"Good. You're supposed to be."

Becca raised her wineglass of water. "To learning new skills."

"With old hands."

They clinked goblets, drank, then ate.

The silence that settled over the candlelit meal was portentous for both, but in divergent ways. For Zach, the silence seemed to encircle and affirm the glimpses of perfection he'd seen in Rome and the glimpses of perfection he'd shaped with Becca the two weekends prior to his trip. For Becca, the silence reminded her of the nearly paralytic emptiness she'd felt in Zach's absence, an emptiness and dependence that undermined everything else in her life she valued and needed. She didn't want to and didn't expect to give Zach up (such a sudden development would cause a core tremor all its own), but she knew she couldn't give up everything else for him.

"Did you get my note?" she said finally, her plate empty but while still nibbling on a crust of roll.

Zach nodded. "I'm sorry you were so lonely."

"I wasn't lonely, Zach. I had my parents and Sarah and Katie. I had plenty of company. But I was lost on the inside. I don't want to be that lost; I can't be that lost."

"I certainly don't want you to suffer like that."

"I know you don't. Please help me find a balance that works."

Zach felt something in his heart give way but chose to ignore it. "I'll try," he said, then began to clear their plates.

Becca stood to help.

When they'd finished clearing the table and setting the plates and silverware in the sink, Zach said, "Dessert is a surprise."

"As if the rest wasn't?"

"More surprise then, but it'll take a minute."

"That's O.K.—give me a chance to digest all that dinner."

"Want more tea?"

She said, "Please. And can I clear the table and spread my books out here? I'd like to be near you while I'm studying."

He wrapped his arms loosely around her waist. "You mean I won't be too much of a distraction?"

"Not tonight, Mister Chef par Excellence."

He kissed her then stepped back. "Bring your books in here."

Becca turned on the overhead light, blew out the candle and set it and the daffodil on the kitchen counter, then carefully folded the tablecloth.

Zach boiled water in a pot and made her another cup of tea.

Becca gathered the books and notebooks she needed from the couch, spread them out on the table, and resumed her note-taking.

Zach set her cup of tea on the only spot on the table big enough to hold it. "That's a lot of books."

"This is just for the History thesis. I've got my German Lit paper and two other term papers to finish in a month, not to mention the trip to the marine lab."

He shrugged. "It'll all work out."

"Easy for you to say—I can't just sit down and have this beautiful concise eloquent prose come out. Writing is hard for me."

"Can I help?"

"You can't write my papers, Zach. You helped give me some ideas. The rest is on me."

"How about I finish dessert?"

She smiled. "That'll help for sure."

As Zach hand-whipped the heavy cream with a wire whisk in a chilled bowl, a dark foreboding settled over him—the foreboding he'd felt a few minutes earlier, the foreboding he'd felt on first seeing Becca the night before, the foreboding that seemed to lurk ever near despite their recent joy, a foreboding all the darker for the brilliance of that which it threatened. By the time the cream had finally thickened in the glass bowl, he was in a deep trough. All the fears he'd held at bay these past few weeks had regrouped in a powerful counterattack and overrun his hopes, his ever tenuous grasp on optimism. His spirit was suddenly as dense and dark as the bittersweet-chocolate hazelnut mousse over which he spooned the fresh whipped cream.

As he stood before Becca with a bowl of mousse in each hand and waited for her to clear space on the table, he wondered what had changed. She was still what she had been from the start—cause and vessel for every ounce of love he would ever have to give. That certainty remained unshaken in him. But just now that love seemed more burden than blessing, more sacrifice than solace.

Becca looked closely at the mousse he set before her. "Is that what I think it is?"

Zach managed a grin. "Try it."

She did, then jumped out of her seat and ran around the table and gave him a hug and mousse-fringed kiss. "Stan's bittersweet-chocolate hazelnut mousse! I can't believe you got the recipe and made it!"

"What are friends for?" he sighed.

"Just for me."

She gave him another kiss then returned to her stool to savor each spoonful of her surprise treat. When she'd finished by licking the rim of the bowl (acceptable in Zach's Restaurant), she said, "You're the best."

He nodded. "Thank you."

"Is it O.K. if I get back to studying?"

"Study away." He collected the bowls and carried them toward the sink.

"And it's O.K. if I don't spend the night?"

Zach turned in front of the sink and faced her from across the kitchen. "Why can't you?"

"I told you—I've got too much to do."

"You've got to sleep. Why not here? Your clothes are here, your books."

"Even if all we do is sleep, it's not the same as sleeping by myself."

"Why not?"

"I'm too wrapped up in you. It doesn't leave room for anything else."

"And that's bad?"

"Zach," she shouted. "What have I been telling you? Yes, it's bad for everything else; and it's bad for me."

"What if it's what I need?"

Becca's eyes suddenly lost their anger and revealed the sadness that seemed now their natural state, a condition that had been barely held at bay through concerted effort these last twenty-four hours. "Please don't put that question before me, Zach," she said, little more than a whisper.

Zach stood a moment in silence gazing at those eyes, at what they spelled to them both. Then he turned toward the sink to wash their dishes.

Becca, her heart heavy, tried to refocus on the mountain of work before her.

After washing and drying their dishes and putting them away, Zach did his best not to disturb her. He went to his desk in the bedroom and reviewed his reading assignments and notes for class the next day. He pulled out his journal and wrote the entry for the last day in Rome. He went through the various souvenirs he'd collected on the trip, and set some on his desk (the limited edition Vatican coin the Monsignor had given him, the golf-ball sized marble chip he'd picked up in the Forum) while storing others on the bookshelves or in the closet. While going through these materials, he discovered that his camera had one picture left unexposed in its roll of thirty-six exposures.

He walked into the kitchen and touched Becca lightly on the shoulder.

She jumped at his touch. "You scared me."

"Sorry." He held out the camera. "I've got one picture left. Can I take it of you?"

"I must look terrible."

Zach circled around in front of her and studied her face. "Nope. Don't see any terrible there."

She looked doubtful.

"Besides, I don't have any pictures of you."

Becca shrugged. "If you insist."

Zach smiled. "I insist." He backed a few feet into the kitchen to get a clear shot.

Becca slid her stack of books to one side, sat up straight as she could manage in the stool with its short back, and stared straight ahead at Zach, never once touching her hair or face.

Zach brought her into focus, got her face centered in the frame, and snapped the picture. He stepped forward, kissed her on the forehead, and said, "Thank you." He wound the film as he walked around the table toward the bedroom.

Becca nodded as he walked past then returned to her note-taking.

It was 1:00 AM when Becca finally closed her books and gathered up her papers spread across the table. She packed her books and notes into her book bag then carefully laid her gifts on top of the books and closed the zippered flap. They'd hardly spoken since dinner, not out of overt anger or misunderstanding but in fatigue—from the long day and the highly emotional several weeks they'd had—and for lack of anything to add, at present anyway, to what had already been said. Besides, Becca had needed to concentrate on her studies and, truth be told, Zach needed to give some attention to his schoolwork as well.

Zach emerged from the bedroom and followed Becca into the living room in his bare feet. He helped her put on her coat then hoisted the book bag onto her shoulder.

"Can I leave those here?" she asked, pointing to the stack of books on his coffee table.

"Sure."

"I'll get them later in the week."

"No problem." He opened the door on the cool and cloudy night.

Becca hesitated a minute in the doorway, looking out into the night. She took a deep breath and released it slowly in a quiet sigh then faced Zach. "I wish I could stay, Zach. I really do."

Zach nodded.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for the gifts, the wonderful dinner, and for your love and patience." She tried to smile in the face of his neutral stare but couldn't quite pull it off. So she turned and left.

As he closed the door in her wake, Zach surrendered any hope of finding a lesser love that might prove sustainable to them both. He would give her all his love, always, whether she accepted it or not. But he would not give her any less; he couldn't.

They saw each other for dinner and a movie the following weekend, and Becca picked up her remaining books. They had a light supper together in his apartment a few days later. Then Becca went on her Marine Biology field trip for five days. Then she had a bad cold and stayed with her parents in Greensboro to recover. They talked about getting together but never found a time that worked—Becca was busy, Zach also. They didn't see each other except in class for over a month.

When the roll of Rome pictures came back from the developer several weeks later, Zach opened the mailer while standing just inside the door to his apartment. He flipped through the snapshots of Barton and the photos of Roman monuments and Italian landscapes with fond recollection. The photo of Becca at the bottom of the stack caught him by surprise. He'd forgotten he'd taken it.

He gazed at the picture for long minutes—those bottomless eyes, his permanent calling and purpose, so distant and sad. He slipped the picture into a plain white envelope, sealed the flap, and didn't open it for decades. In all those years of recalling the image of those eyes burned into his heart, he always saw them as a symbol of his sacrifice and loss. It wasn't until he unsealed the envelope and looked again that he also saw the imprint of his guilt and shame.

A Dream—Lost Food

Sometime during the month of not seeing Becca following his return from Rome, Zach had a powerful dream which he documented in his journal the next morning:

I recall now that I acted the dream, physically performed in response to what my subconscious was telling me.

It started like this: plain sleep slowly filling with imagery—normal dream, harmless. But at some point the play got serious. Somewhere nearby, hidden, there was a message that would save my life. That the message was from you, I was absolutely certain. But how and when it arrived was a mystery. And it was somewhere near—in the apartment, probably in the bedroom, maybe even within reach.

Here my body entered the fray. I know now what I did, remember the acts, but was not conscious of what I was doing at the time. I turned on the lone light, threw back the sheets, and searched the bed. I believe I spoke then, simple questions like "Where?" or "How?" and a plea "Help me." No response. Then I thought you were somewhere near and frantically searched the rooms. No luck.

I paused to pee, perhaps hoping that act would yank me back to reality. But thirty seconds and a toilet flush later, I was back in the bedroom searching your message. My total ignorance of its contents made my search all the more desperate.

Then I knew—my books. I went to my desk, adjusted the light, and leafed through every page of every book I had there, sure your message was hidden somewhere in those pages. Why the books? And, of course, no message.

I was near full consciousness by then, my waking mind struggling with lingering dream to claim rights to my exhausted body. Neither side won. I switched off the light, returned to bed, finally found dreamless sleep.

Your message remains hidden. Or does it? I spent a frantic half hour in blind and vulnerable search for something I knew you'd given me that'd been misplaced—message enough.

Rower's Waltz

Zach extended his right leg out into empty air, his left foot firmly planted on the less than firmly planted pontoon dock that shifted from side to side in the lake's gentle current and the day's soft breeze. He wavered with his leg over the water and considered pulling that leg back to the relative stability of the shifting dock, waiting for things to calm down before trying again.

The uncertainty and new fear made him angry and he silently resolved to make it this time or fall in trying. He extended his arms straight out to either side, found a new balance in the pose, then slowly but confidently lowered his foot till it touched the side of the wooden rowboat below, then reached his leg out even farther till his right foot was fully and squarely on the middle of the boat's stern seat. The dock was a veritable Rock of Gibraltar compared with the floating, spinning, drifting small boat; and Zach wondered again if this hands-free stride into the rowboat was such a good idea.

But now that his foot was on the stern seat, he had no choice except to go forward—the rowboat would not offer enough support for him to push off and get his foot back onto the dock. He frowned to himself, shook his head once, and pulled his left leg off the dock and out into the air over the boat. With all his weight suddenly on the stern of the rowboat, it sank low in the water and pitched away from the dock. To keep from falling backwards and maybe cracking his head on the side of the dock, Zach threw his arms and upper body forward toward the front of the boat. He half-fell, half-stepped into the ribbed bottom, spun around on his left foot newly planted in that bottom, and sat with a graceless thud on the oarsman's bench spanning the middle of the boat.

He looked up at Becca standing above him with their cooler and knapsack at her feet and the oarlocks in her hand. He raised his arms and extended his hands palm up as if to say, "No problem."

Becca was still miffed at his refusal to accept her offer of a steadying hand as he'd begun to step off the dock, a gesture she understood to be a token punishment for her scarce presence these last couple months. She shook her head once and frowned. But she couldn't remain long angry at his sheepish grin and finally had to laugh. "If I had a video camera, you'd never live it down."

"What do you mean? Graceful as Baryshnikov."

"On a greased skateboard in an ice storm."

"That's what I meant." He stood on wobbly legs in the rolling boat and took the cooler then the knapsack and set them in the bow. Then he took the oarlocks in his left hand and helped guide and steady Becca with his right as she sat on the edge of the dock then slid slowly down onto the boat's stern seat. Zach couldn't help but note that this was the longest they'd touched—skin to skin—in what? at least ten weeks.

Once securely and comfortably situated, Becca released his hand. "Thank you," she said, before smoothing her khaki shorts and white T-shirt and pulling the band holding her ponytail tighter to her skull. Then she looked up at Zach still standing between her and the oarsman's bench. "Well, onward James."

"At your service, ma'am," Zach said, and sat on the bench, set the oarlocks in their holes, then pulled the long wooden oars up from under the bench and set them in the open notch of the oarlocks.

Becca said, "Whoever thought of taking the oarlocks for security rather than the oars ought to get a raise. Can you imagine trying to get into the boat carrying those oars?"

Zach laughed. "Might be a good balance pole."

"You could've used one," she said.

"Made it, didn't I?"

"Barely." She reached out and slid the rope tether's loop off the hook on the side of the dock.

Zach made two strong paired pulls on the oars and the boat glided away from the dock and out toward the middle of the lake. Zach lifted the oar tips out of the water by pushing the handles down into his lap. The boat, powered by no more than those two pulls and whatever invisible currents and breeze assisted, slid silently across the clear water sparkling in the day's brilliant sun. Zach closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind float free along with the boat and the day, let the tension ease from the taut muscles in his neck and back, let the sun warm the crown of his head and his shoulders, slowly inhaled the late-spring pond-scented air, then offered the air back in a long slow silent sigh.

When he opened his eyes, Becca was staring at him. "New man?"

He nodded. "Out here, always."

"So I see. Thanks for letting me come along."

"You're welcome."

By then, they were near the middle of this narrow part of the lake. Zach pulled hard on the left oar to turn them right, toward the channel south, into the sun.

Zach often rowed by himself on this man-made lake, a reservoir for the town's drinking water that meandered for miles across the largely deserted fields and woods of what were once farms, fingers of pure blue water extending up former valleys and gullies that once held barns, dirt trails, moonshine stills. Zach's muscles had grown well-accustomed to the whole-body rhythms of rowing—the rower's waltz he called it. His feet would brace against the bottom of the boat, his calves and thighs would contract and push his torso up and back, his arms and shoulders and chest and upper body would lean out at a steep angle toward the bow of the boat, steadily leaning away from vertical and toward horizontal, as his hands holding the oars came toward his face and under his chin, thrusting the far end of the oars submerged in the water in the opposite direction, pushing against the water and propelling the boat forward, even as he was facing the rear of the boat, looking in the direction he'd just come, watching his wake. Then, with the oar handles up close to his chin and the oar tips at maximum extension away from his body, his hands holding the oars would drop toward his lap, lifting the tips out of the water, and he'd reverse the former sequence—raising his upper body toward vertical, loosening his calves and thighs and shifting his body toward the rear of the boat as he extended his arms away from his center of gravity and the oar tips floating above the water angled toward the bow of the boat. Then he'd raise the oar handles up, drop the tips back into the water, tense his thighs and calves, and begin the cycle all over again in this whole body exercise, this rower's waltz.

Over the next half hour, they glided without speaking steadily away from the docks and toward the remote center of the sprawling reservoir. In that long silence Becca again avoided confronting those questions about their relationship that lurked ever at the edges of her consciousness, choosing instead to focus on Zach's body, the graceful interweaving of all his parts with the oars and the boat and the day a more appealing draw than reflection on their past or speculation on their future.

The little boat pushed onward across the broad lake, passing both wild and domesticated animals on the shore and oblivious to their presence—a heron unmoving in the shallows, a deer threading through brush, cattle grazing in a field, two mules stone-still on a hill. In the steady back and forth rocking of the boat and the warmth of the sun on her face and arms and legs, Becca drifted into an enticing daze. She opened her eyes when the rhythms suddenly stopped.

Zach smiled at her from his seat a few feet away, the oar tips in the air, the boat drifting. "Sorry to wake you."

Becca smiled back. "I wasn't asleep, but it does feel like a dream—one huge, warm, seductive dream. And all our own."

Zach nodded. "Not many boats out here on weekdays."

"Lucky us."

Zach nodded. "Want to find a quiet cove and tie off for lunch?"

"We could eat right here."

Zach looked in all directions—not a building or boat or human visible. "Nah, too crowded."

Becca laughed. "The recluse speaks."

"Besides, the sun's getting hot. We can find a little shade close to shore."

Becca didn't mind the heat but said, "You're driving."

Two seconds later, he was—pulling hard and fast on the oars this time, stretching his muscles and legs and arms and lungs and heart. The oars groaned in their oarlocks, nearly jumping out of the metal holders at the furthest thrust of each beat. In less than two minutes Zach had them close to shore. He slowed his pace and turned the boat to the left and ran parallel to the shoreline, maybe twenty feet or so out in the water, looking for a suitable cove to tie off in. He remembered an especially picturesque inlet somewhere along here, with a tall weeping willow reaching out over the water in a natural canopy. He'd begun to think he'd already passed it when they glided around a fallen tree and there was the cove with the willow. He turned the boat into the cove, checked the depth of the water, looked for possible submerged hazards, and glanced over his shoulder to gauge the distance to the shore. He gave one last gentle thrust to the oars, then lowered the handles down into the bottom of the boat, stood and turned and caught the lowest willow limb as they glided past. Becca handed him the rope, and he tied them off to the limb.

The air was at least ten degrees cooler in the shade, and noticeably less humid. Along the bushes on shore, songbirds jumped from branch to branch, calling back and forth, trying to determine if these unfamiliar intruders were a threat. On a half-submerged log jutting at an angle into the air, a line of pond turtles stretched from where the trunk rose up out of the water to the tip of the log some five feet above the water. While they watched, the lead turtle at the end of the log was nudged forward by the line of turtles following and fell to the water's surface with a loud splash. The songbirds were suddenly silent; somewhere farther inland, a crow cawed once then stopped.

Becca looked around the canopied cove in wonder. "So this is why you come out here."

Zach nodded. "One of the reasons."

"It's amazing—like something out of The Lord of the Rings."

"Better."

"How?"

"It's mine."

She looked closely at him. "Thanks for sharing it."

"Plus none of those stupid little people rooting around in the dirt."

Becca laughed. "If you'll hand me the cooler, I'll serve lunch before those little people steal it."

Zach swung the cooler from the bow onto the seat beside her.

She unpacked a small feast—pimento-cheese sandwiches on thick slices of fresh-baked whole-wheat bread, hummus on pita wedges, and banana bread with peanut butter for dessert: and all of it except the peanut butter made by Becca's own hands. She handed Zach a heaping plate, then offered him cola in a bottle or beer in a can. He took the beer.

After quickly consuming more than half of his meal, Zach looked up at her and said, "You'll make someone a hell of a wife."

She bit her bottom lip lightly. "You can cook circles around me, Zach."

"That doesn't change my assertion."

She nodded slowly while nibbling on her sandwich. "Then thanks, I guess."

They ate awhile in silence. Water bugs skittered across the surface of the lake. Another turtle tumbled into the water with a splash.

"It'll be a long time till I marry, if ever."

Zach said, "Why?"

"England this summer, then my last semester, then work somewhere, maybe travel some more."

"Grad school?"

She shook her head. "In what? Nothing I want to learn. Well, actually, everything I want to learn—just no one thing needing more school."

"I know the feeling."

"And you?"

"Marriage? Been there, not looking to go back."

"No, grad school."

"Like you—no one thing worth pursuing."

"Not even your writing?"

"Don't need grad school to write—only gets in the way: an exercise to avoid the loneliness of writing."

"Doesn't sound like fun."

"It isn't."

They finished their lunch in silence. Zach took the plates and rinsed them in the lake, then set them in the sun to dry. Becca repacked the cooler and handed it to Zach to stow in front. Zach sat down again on the oarsman's bench and looked around the cove and fiddled with the oarlocks. Another turtle fell into the water.

"Maybe we should head back," Zach said. "It's a longer row against the current, and I've got dinner plans with Barton and some of his friends tonight." He grabbed the oar handles.

At first Becca nodded agreement, but then stopped and asked, "Can we stay a few more minutes. It's so beautiful and peaceful here."

Zach shrugged. "Sure. No rush." He set the oars back in the bow.

Becca watched him for a few minutes. He kept looking at the shoreline, or up the hill through the dense underbrush, or out toward the lake—anywhere except toward her. "Can we stay a few more minutes with you looking at me and maybe just a little closer?"

He looked directly at her for the first time that day, maybe the first time for weeks. She was the same girl he'd fallen in love with nine months earlier, the same girl he'd poured his whole heart into in a reckless risk his heart was now paying the price for. She was that same girl. What's more, his love for her was as strong as it had been from the start, not one iota diminished. But his heart was deeply bruised, and that pain held him back now. "If I sit on that seat with you, we'll swamp the boat."

"Zach, can't you let me be nice to you? Can't you at least let me try?" She took her beach towel and spread it on the bottom of the boat at her feet. "Sit here please." She pointed at the towel.

He laughed. "You're cute when you're mad."

"Don't push it. Sit!"

He slid off his seat and sat cross-legged on the towel facing her.

"That looks uncomfortable," she said.

"It is."

"Then turn around, stretch your legs out toward the front of the boat, and lean back against me."

He followed her directions, rocking the boat from side to side, but finally getting settled with his legs stretched forward under the middle seat and his back and shoulders leaning against Becca's knees.

Becca cradled his head gently in her hands and eased it onto her lap.

Zach felt all the hurt rising up in him again, pain rising in a crescendo. But he also knew he was helpless to resist. She was Becca; she was the love of his life.

"Zach, I care for you more than anybody in the world. I respect and admire you more than anyone I know. I wish I could be with you all the time."

She lightly massaged his temples as she spoke. He was dying in joy.

"But I can't be with you all the time. Your love, your whole personality, is so big. It takes me over. It's not your fault; it's not my fault; it's who we are. And who we are is too much if we're together too much, if we get too close."

"Not for me."

"Then for me. And I think for you too, even though you won't admit it. You'd throw away everything for me—your scholarship, your writing, your friendship with Barton, your future: all of it."

His eyes stayed closed, but he said, "You're right. I would walk away from all that if it meant being with you."

"That's insane, Zach. People don't do that."

"I would."

"People shouldn't do that."

"I would."

"You're wrong."

They were at a familiar impasse. He wasn't sure why Becca had to hear it one more time. He didn't have to hear it anymore; he lived it every minute of every day.

"But thank you, Zach, for giving me the space I need and still letting me see you. Thank you for still loving me even if it's less love than you want to give."

Zach hardly heard her. All he felt was her hands on his head—how wonderful her fingers felt lightly rubbing the skin of his forehead, how absolutely heavenly they felt. His mind, his heart, his whole body leaned toward those hands, folded itself into those hands. His mind, his heart, his whole body longed for whole touch against her again, longed to merge their two skins into one flesh again, make themselves again into the single entity they'd been. Then suddenly he knew he could. The water bugs skittering on the surface of the water wouldn't care. The turtles tumbling, the songbirds twittering, the crow up the hill cawing wouldn't care. In fact, they'd bless the union. This cove, the lake, the grand beautiful day would bless their union. What's more, he suddenly knew, Becca longed for that union—as much as he, even more than he. Every fish in the lake, every creeping thing upon the ground, every bird in the sky, every leaf on every tree, every star hidden in the heavens pointed them toward one more merging, one more link in their golden chain of love.

Which is precisely why he sat up suddenly, then stood, turned in the boat, sat on the rower's bench, pulled the rope's knot loose from the limb, took up the oars, dipped their tips in the water, and made a couple shallow pulls toward the broad center of the lake.

Becca, her eyes bewildered and hurt, pulled the rope out of the water and into the boat.

Then he began his rower's waltz, the pulls strong and unbroken, the rhythms sure—thrust then release, thrust then release—not pausing once in the hour-long push to the dock, knowing with each firm oar stroke that he could not bear, would never accept, the universe's blessing of a last union with the one who would always carry his soul.

Candlelight

Zach held the chair and waited for Becca to sit. The perfectly woven braid of her blond hair laid along her spine atop her linen dress seemed to him a tether to a bygone life. If he were just allowed to touch it maybe that bygone life would be placed right again. Becca sat, and he gently slid the chair under her. He circled to the other side of the table nestled in the alcove and sat opposite her.

They were at the finest restaurant in town, maybe in the whole state, a restaurant specializing in provincial French cuisine with some creative twists borrowed from many traditions—delicately seasoned rich food served in multiple courses of modest portions, all painstakingly prepared and beautifully presented on fine china set gracefully on white linen tablecloths. They were there at Zach's invitation in recognition of two milestones—the imminent departure of Becca for ten weeks of study and touring in Great Britain, and the recent acceptance of one of Zach's stories for publication in a national literary journal. It was a clear warm weeknight in early July, the college town was near empty in its summer somnolence, and the restaurant was not busy. They had the alcove off the entry foyer of the converted bungalow all to themselves. It was for them, ever lovers of peaceful, quiet elegance, the perfect table in the perfect restaurant on a perfectly nondescript summer evening.

Two long tapering white candles framed Becca's face, the flames at their tips almost invisible in the brilliant late sun pouring through the foyer window. Zach slid the bone china bud vase with its single long-stemmed red rose from the center of the table over to the side along the wall to get an unobstructed view of the beautiful woman seated across from him. She never failed to take his breath away if he paused and looked straight at her. Tonight was no different.

Becca gently brushed the crisply ironed tablecloth, lightly touched the perfectly aligned, gleaming silverware. "Same Maison," she said with a touch of awe. They'd been here together once before, early in their relationship. It'd been an eye-opening experience for Becca. She'd thought she knew good restaurants, had been to her share over the years; but she'd never been to a place where food was elevated to art, and the entire dining experience shaped as a drama engaging all the senses. Following that first visit to La Maison, and largely unconsciously, Becca began to contemplate a career in fine cuisine.

Zach looked around. "Lot less crowded; prettier day." Their previous date had been in winter, a cold day with snow flurries and a biting wind, early dark, no golden sun pouring through the foyer window.

"Same handsome date."

Zach felt himself blush and wondered how she could still do that after nine months and all they'd been through. "You all packed?"

Becca laughed. "Are you kidding? I've packed and unpacked and repacked I don't know how many times. My mom keeps getting me new stuff to take, which means I've got to take something out to make room. Hardest part is I have no idea what I'll be wearing. They say prepare for cool and damp. Zach, I can't fathom cool and damp in July and August. The idea does not compute. I keep putting in shorts and T-shirts, and my mom keeps taking them out."

"If you do find cool and damp, send me some in a box. I'm already tired of hot and humid."

"Why don't you go and I'll stay."

"Why don't you stay and I'll stay."

Becca bit the side of her lip lightly. "I miss you already."

This unexpected claim cut Zach to the quick. They'd seen each other only occasionally in the prior three months and only once since the rowing trip to the lake three weeks earlier. If she were missing him—really missing him—she had an odd way of showing it. But he made a silent decision not to challenge her assertions, not to try again to get to the bottom of her feelings for him. He'd not go down that path this night, in this place, with her departure just two days away. "You'll be fine, Bec. They'll swoon over your Southern charms in Merry Olde."

"Or plow them under."

"Not possible."

The waitress came and took their order. They passed on a shared bottle of wine but did order two glasses of champagne. While waiting their first course, they toasted Zach's story's acceptance, Becca's forthcoming trip, and the beautiful evening. By then the sun had set and their alcove was bathed in the salmon-colored glow of twilight. The flames on the candles to either side of Becca's face were more noticeable in the dimmer light, delicately flickering, the tapers still tall but slowly, imperceptibly shrinking.

The waitress delivered their first course and they dove in with appetites hearty despite the warm day and the emotional occasion. Becca had cold cream of tomato soup with basil oil and crème fraiche, and Zach had a rabbit and multi-colored beet terrine served in thin slices accompanied by crusty French bread. Without perceiving the shift, they settled into their old best selves—joined over fine food, no need for small talk or idle conversation, content in the glow of each other's presence, in the world but also in their own world, briefly freed of all demands or expectations, embraced by love.

By the time they finished this course and looked beyond each other, the twilight had turned to dusk and the room beyond their candle-lit table receded in grainy gray light. Zach felt a shiver of fear at the discovery of this new sudden dark. He focused on Becca's face for reassurance and comfort and found her smiling fully at him, even more beautiful than before in the flickering glow of the candles. Despite her beauty, maybe because of it, he felt uneasy to see her so sharply etched against the new gray background—a blond angel withheld from him, devoid of history or promise, a stark and overwhelming and transitory celestial messenger.

The waitress brought their main courses. Becca had poached salmon over tarragon and chanterelle rice, and julienned carrots in a Pernod and butter reduction. Zach had thin sliced beef tenderloin with a caper cream sauce, crispy potatoes provencale, and asparagus spears tossed in lemon oil and ground salt. The food was delicious, and both ate eagerly.

But something had changed in the new dark. Their private alcove suddenly felt very lonely to Zach. He felt isolated, estranged not only from the world but also from the woman seated across from him in the candlelight, an arm's reach away.

"What's the matter, Zach?" Becca'd finished her salmon and slid the plate aside and leaned forward. "Tell me what's wrong."

He looked at that beautiful face, those bottomless dark eyes, the candles' flames just inches from her golden hair, the perfect gentle arc of her temple, the flames' sparkling reflection like a living thing inside those dark eyes, her whole being intent and loving and caring, this face, this person who was and would always be his definition of perfection, of Heaven, of life fulfilled—she would never be his, never be what he needed her to be, never be what God had placed her before him to be.

He set his fork down, reached across, brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, even his knuckles—so deprived of nerve endings—feeling fully the painful softness of her skin, her beauty. "Nothing, Becca. A raven's wing brush of fear in the night, gone now."

She watched him closely, still leaning toward him.

He smiled. "Got any room for dessert?"

She leaned back finally. "No, but that doesn't mean I won't have any."

They both could laugh.

Set back from the candlelight, her face appeared safe again, donned once more a hint of hope, a whisper of promise.

The waitress came around the corner to clear their plates. "Boy, got dark in a hurry," she said, and turned on the wall sconces. The room jumped forth in light that was briefly blinding before settling into a warm glow. The candles' flames faded to their normal role as flickering accents in the diversely lit room.

The waitress cleared their dinnerware and brought them dessert menus. Becca ordered Amaretto-mousse cake and hot tea, Zach ordered Normand apple-calvados tart and espresso.

While they awaited their dessert, they sat and simply gazed at each other. Gone was the desperate longing that had characterized their joined gaze in the early days—the hunger, the need to express their feelings, release them to the other. Replacing this hunger was a comfort and trust born of all they'd shared in a short time—all the chances ventured, rewards garnered, risks survived: love and care intact. This gaze said they'd always honor this love, whatever their futures.

From her side, Becca felt deep gratitude for the love this man had bestowed on her without condition or constraint. That love had reshaped how she saw herself, given her confidence she didn't know she had, helped her build the courage to undertake this long trip overseas, so far from home. She sometimes wondered if she'd have been able to attempt the trip without the strength he'd given her; she was glad she wouldn't have to try. She'd take him with her wherever she went, now forward. She slid her hand across the table and into his. "I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me."

"You don't have to tell me. I already know."

She nodded. "Then you know how grateful I am."

"I know."

The waitress brought their desserts. Atop the full meal and the full day turned to night, in the flickering light of waning candles and in the dancing long shadow of all they'd shared, the desserts, while delicious, seemed anticlimactic. Maybe this was a good thing—who could've borne more of the same?

Later that night, Zach sat at his desk and typed a five-line poem he'd send to Becca by first mail the next morning. The poem culminated in a two-word plea, a plea he knew in his heart to be hopeless. Still, he typed the words. He said them aloud, then said them again.

Parting Prayer

Go then with me,

With my best wishes, blessing,

Endless thoughts.

Go, Kindest.

But return, please.

