'Pearl doesn't seem responsive to the call of the wild,' I said.
'No,' Susan said. 'But I am.'
'That's what all the guys at the Harvard Faculty Club say.'
'The guys at the Harvard Faculty Club say nothing that visceral,' Susan said. 'Would you like to make love?'
I was silent for a while thinking about that. Slanted diagonally across the lower half of the bed so that she took up twice as much room as she needed to, Pearl snored softly and made occasional lip-smacking sounds as if she might be dreaming of Devil Dogs.
'What about the baby?' I said.
'We could ask her to visit Uncle Hawk for a while.'
I thought about that.
'I don't think so,' I said. 'I think it would be better to wait.'
'For what?' Susan said.
'Until I can do something better than fumble at you with my left hand,' I said.
'There's nothing wrong with your left hand,' Susan said.
I shrugged in the darkness.
'I think we should wait until I'm together again,' I said.
'He didn't kill you,' Susan said. 'You shouldn't act like he did.'
'Hell, Suze, I can barely turn over by myself, for crissake. I can't even walk up the goddamned hill that you run up every morning. I can barely walk to it.'
'Yet,' Susan said. 'You'll walk up it, and eventually you'll run up it and you'll run up it faster than I can.'
'Maybe,' I said.
'Hawk and I didn't drag you out here for maybes,' Susan said. 'You're not all you were yet. But you will be. But there's no reason to be less than you are now. If you can't move around as you might wish to, I can. And would be happy to.'
I thought about that while Susan got out of bed and took off her green flowered pajamas and draped them over a chair. I looked at her naked with the same feelings I always got. I'd seen her naked thousands of times by now, and it didn't matter. It was the same experience it had been the first time. She was always like the first time, always the one that wasn't like anyone else I'd ever been with.
'Maybe the machinery won't work right,' I said.
'Maybe it will,' Susan said and came to the bed and lay down beside me.
In a moment she said, 'It appears to be working.'
'That's heartening,' I said.
'Just lie still,' Susan said. 'I'll do everything.'
'Lying still is more difficult than I thought it would be,' I said.
'You may yell yahoo now and then if you'd like.'
Pearl shifted at the foot of the bed and made a grumpy sound as if she resented being disturbed.
'What about the baby,' I said.
'It's time she knew,' Susan said.
Later in the night the moon moved its location so it was probably shining into Uncle Hawk's room. In the much deeper darkness I was pressed against Susan, listening to her regular breathing. Pearl had worked her way under the covers at the foot of the bed and slept silently except for an occasional snore.
'You awake?' I said.
'Yes.'
'There's no guarantee I'll come all the way back,' I said.
'I think you will,' she said.
'And if I don't?'
'For richer, for poorer,' she murmured, 'in sickness and in health.'
'You'll be here,' I said.
'I will always be here,' she said.
And she pressed closer to me and we were silent and I smelled her, and felt her and listened to her, and knew that if I had nothing else but this, this would be enough.
Chapter 38
IN THE MORNING it was raining, the low rain clouds covering the tops of some of the further hills.
When it rains in Southern California the television stations do the same thing they do in Boston when it snows. They pretend the sky is falling. They show the storm's path on radar. They give tips on how to survive the rain.
