In the evening, after dinner, he suggested a dance.

She had not danced since she was at school. She had not been a girl who danced at school. She had been a girl who stood at the edge of school dances, with a cup of something warm, and watched other people dance, and thought about the music. She had not minded standing at the edge. She had minded it less than she had minded dancing, which was a thing that required her to be looked at, and being looked at was a thing she had not been able to bear for as long as she could remember.

She said: I do not dance.

He said: I am not asking you to dance. I am asking you to stand in the parlour with me while there is no music.

She said: that is not dancing.

He said: it is the part of dancing that I can do.

She looked at him. She said: the part of dancing you can do.

He said: I cannot provide music yet. I have been working on it. The dream has not yet learned how to provide music. It can provide a kettle, and a fire, and a book, and light at three in the afternoon. It has not yet learned how to provide music.

She said: the dream.

He said: the dream.

She said: you are calling it a dream.

He said: I am calling it a dream because I do not know what else to call it. You have not called it anything. I have not heard you call it anything.

She said: I have not called it anything because I do not know what to call it.

He said: then we are agreed.

She said: we are agreed.

He stood. He held out his hand. She took it. He led her into the parlour. He had moved the chair out of the way. The parlour was empty. The fire was not lit. The room smelled of woodsmoke from the night before, and of dust, and of the book he had been reading, which was still on the mantelpiece. The book was open, and the page it was open to was a page she had not read, and the page had a line on it in pencil, and the line was: She did not know she was dancing until he told her.

She looked at the line. She looked at him. He had turned away. He was looking at the window. The window was dark, although the hour was still three. She said: did you mark that line.

He said: I have not marked a line in the book.

She said: the line is marked in pencil.

He said: I did not mark it.

She said: who marked it.

He said: I don’t know. The line was marked when I found the book.

She said: what does it mean.

He said: I have not yet read the chapter.

She said: have you not yet read it, or have you not yet read it to me.

He did not answer. He looked at the window. The window was dark. She thought: he is afraid of the line in the book. He is afraid of the line the way he is afraid of the name Anne. He is afraid of the things that are in him that he did not put there.

He said: there is no music.

She said: I heard you.

He put his hand on her waist. He put his other hand in her hand. He stood a little distance from her, and they were not dancing, and there was no music, and he began, very slowly, to move.

He moved the way one moves when one is not sure one has a body. He moved with a kind of careful deliberation, as if each step was a thing he had to think about before he did it. He did not know how to dance. She had not known how to dance either, but she had watched people dance for long enough that she had a sense of the shape, and she let him lead, and he let her not be led, and they moved around the parlour, very slowly, with no music, and the fire was not lit, and the room smelled of woodsmoke and dust.

She said: what are we doing.

He said: I think we are dancing.

She said: I think we are standing in a parlour moving in circles.

He said: that is what dancing is.

She said: I thought dancing involved music.

He said: I have not yet taught the dream to provide music. I will. But not tonight.

She said: I will hold you to that.

He said: I know.

They moved. She closed her eyes. She did not usually close her eyes. She had not been a girl who closed her eyes, because closing her eyes was the kind of thing one did when one trusted the ground, and she had not trusted the ground since she was six. But she closed her eyes, and the floor of the parlour was solid under her feet, and his hand was warm on her waist, and his hand was warm in her hand, and she closed her eyes and they moved.

It happened between one step and the next.

His hand went out of her hand. Not away — through. His hand went through her hand, the way a hand goes through light, and she felt, for a quarter of a second, the absence of him, which was the absence of a thing she had not known she was holding. She opened her eyes. He was still there. His hand was in her hand. His hand was solid. She looked at him. He had not noticed.

She said: nothing.

He said: what.

She said: I thought I felt something.

He said: what kind of something.

She said: I don’t know. As if you were not here for a moment.

He stopped moving. They stood in the parlour, in the dim gold light, and he looked at her, and his face was the face of a man who had been told a thing he had been afraid of hearing. He said, after a long time: I am here.

She said: I know.

He said: I am always here.

She said: I know.

He said: I will be here in the morning.

She said: I know.

He said: I will be here tomorrow and the day after.

She said: I know.

He did not finish. He started moving again, very slowly. She did not close her eyes again. She watched him. She watched his hand in her hand. His hand was solid. His hand was warm. His hand did not flicker again.

After a long time, she said: what are you.

He said: yours.

She said: that is not an answer.

He said: it is the only answer I have.

She said: the only answer you have.

He said: the only one I can give without making you afraid.

She said: I am not afraid.

He said: you are afraid.

She said: I am afraid.

He said: I know.

They moved. There was no music. The light did not change. After a long time, she said: I will not be afraid of you.

He said: you will be afraid of me. I am afraid of me. I am afraid of me in a way that I do not have words for, and I am made of you, and so the words I do not have are the words you do not have, and we are both of us, in this, wordless.

She said: wordless.

He said: wordless.

She thought: he is more afraid than I am. She thought: he is more afraid than I am because he is more alone than I am. She thought: he is alone in himself, and I am not alone in him.

She said: all right.

He said: all right.

They moved around the parlour. After a long time, she put her head on his shoulder. He did not move. He stood very still, and she stood very still, and they were not dancing, and there was no music, and the room smelled of woodsmoke and dust, and his hand on her waist did not flicker.

---

That night she slept in his bed.

She had not meant to. She had gone up to her own room, and the bed had been made, and the pillow had a dent that was not hers, and she had stood in the doorway and looked at the bed, and she had thought: I do not want to be alone in this room tonight.

She went down the stairs. She went to the small bedroom, the one with the child’s bed. The door was open. The light was on. He was sitting in a chair by the window, reading his book. He looked up. He said: you are here.

She said: I am here.

He said: I can go.

She said: no.

He said: I can sleep in the other room.

She said: no.

He said: I can read in the kitchen.

She said: no.

He put the book down. He looked at her for a long time. Then he stood. He came to the bed. He pulled back the sheet. He lay down on the far side of the bed, and he lay very still, on his back, with his hands at his sides, and she came and lay down on the other side of the bed, and they did not touch, and the light was the colour of late afternoon, and the clock said three, and the cottage was quiet.

She said: I am not going to sleep with you.

He said: I know.

She said: I want to be in the same room as someone.

He said: I know.

She said: I have not been in the same room as someone for a long time.

He said: I know.

She said: I think I have not been in the same room as someone since Daniel left.

He said: I know.

She said: you do not know. You cannot know that. You have not been in my life for as long as Daniel was in my life.

He said: I have been in your life for as long as you have been alive. I have been in the part of your life that does not have a name. I have been there, and Daniel was not there, and your mother was not there. I have been the part of you that has been there.

She did not answer. She lay on her back, and looked at the ceiling, and thought about what he had said. After a long time she said: I think that is what I am afraid of.

He said: I know.

She said: I am afraid of the part of me that has been there.

He said: I know.

She said: I am afraid of the part of me that is you.

He said: I am afraid of the part of me that is you too.

She said: I think we should sleep.

He said: I think we should.

She closed her eyes. The light through the window was still the colour of late afternoon. The clock, in the hall, still said three. She did not sleep for a long time. She lay beside him, and he lay beside her, and they did not touch, and the cottage was quiet.

She thought: I am in a bed with a man I have known for five days. She thought: I have not been in a bed with anyone since Daniel. She thought: Daniel used to sleep on the side of the bed nearest the door, because he said he liked to be the one to hear the door open. This man is sleeping on the side of the bed nearest the wall, as if he has always been the one furthest from the door. As if the door is the part of the bed he has been protecting me from.

She thought: I am protecting him. I am the one nearest the door. I am the one who, if anyone came, would be between him and the door. I have not been a person who stands between another person and a door. I have not been a person who is asked to.

She thought: I do not know how to be the person who is asked to.

She thought: I will learn.

She slept. In her sleep, she heard a sound that was not the machine, and not the sea, and not the kettle. It was her own voice, very far off, saying: stay.

Somewhere, in a place she could not see, the machine went on, going beep, and her mother, in a chair she could not see, slept with her head on the bed beside her, and her mother’s hand was on her hair, and her mother was saying, in a voice that was very low, the same thing over and over: come back, baby, come back.

Maeve did not hear her. She slept. The cottage was quiet. The clock said three. The line in the book, in the parlour, stayed marked. The light did not change.