Hide and Seek

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That night we slept together on my bed. In the morning she was gone

when I woke. There was no note. I'd have been surprised to find one

there.

I woke up bruised and charged with energy.

I wondered vaguely what she'd told her parents, if anything. I didn't

worry about it. I didn't worry about anything at all. There had never

been anyone like her in Dead River. In my mood I doubted there was

anyone like her anywhere.

I could never have expected her, yet I felt I'd waited for her all my

life. Some compensations for all those years of emptiness. It was

postcoital euphoria on a massive scale. And more.

I made some coffee and read the morning paper, lying in bed and sipping

at the coffee, and every so often the scent of her would waft up from

the linen or from me. Unwashed, unshaven, I felt clean as a baby.

It was Saturday, so there was nothing I was pressed to do. It must

have taken me two hours to get to the shower. When I came out,

dripping, looking for a towel, she was standing by the bed.

"Dry off. We already did that once, remember?"

We spent the day in bed.

Then most of Sunday.

I never did get around to asking her what she'd told her parents. It

didn't seem important. Obviously she was handling it one way or