Raindrops drummed against the windowpane in a steady rhythm. The cocoon under the blanket was so deliciously warm. She was hovering in that peaceful plane, somewhere between waking and slumbering. Where all cares are forgotten, and the senses drift lightly between what is real and what is fancied.
Little by little, her mind crept towards the world and its clarity, away from the soft, black embrace of dreaming. Had he been part of the dream world? Her eyes fluttered lazily, and her head lifted an inch from the pillow. He was not in the room with her. There was no hulking body laid beside her, leaning over her, holding her jealously. His lips were not murmuring sweet words into her ear, and yet that gracefully sculpted curve of flesh was tingling, as if he had just been doing so.
The bedroom door was ajar, but she often left it that way so that Pumpkin could come and go without a fuss. A thin rectangle of firelight spilled through from the living room. No footsteps reached her ears.
Many a vivid dream had sweetly tormented her nights. Ever since that one evening, far back in the spring. The evening when he asked how she had become a cripple, and then he shed a tear for what she had suffered. It was the first time he dared to speak freely, and she knew that he was no longer just a guest in her home, nor she just a hostess to him. Her heart had sputtered to life that night, like a tiny flame that emerges from a pile of tinder long tended and wishfully nurtured with heat and air. Every night after, she could not drive him from her thoughts, and as the mellow days of summer passed, the dreams became more ardent.
Her feet shifted lazily under the coverlet, and she rolled onto her back with a sighing moan. Something felt amiss. The sheets passed unhindered over her bare legs. She was not in her night-dress.
Trembling fingers lifted the blanket. In the grey, fuzzy shadows, she could see her ubiquitous, beige frock. The hem was rumpled and rolled around her thighs in a wild, careless fashion.
Her mind emptied itself. A fierce, hard pounding took up a beat behind her ribcage. She could only stare. Stare into that dim, dark space, as if it might whisper back to her, and make clear the muddled tangle of musings jumbling about inside her skull.
At length, the blanket was lowered back into place. She remained with her head aloft, propped on her elbow, looking towards the next room. A dreamy, bewildered smile twitched the corners of her lips.
