We returned home with my mother’s wedding ring, and her packets of letters. Home where we pulled weeds from our garden and cut the grass and wildflowers when they grew too high. Home where we ran a damp cloth over all our smooth surfaces.
It was then something changed in Tess. Or changed again. My mother’s death had provoked in her some of that former fire and panic, unearthed the old desire. She spoke less. Was remote in her old way. A new heat and charge to her.
We’d been home a week or so when I woke in the night to see her dressed and standing by the window in the moonlight. I called her name and she came to me and sat on the bed. She moved her fingers through my hair and kissed my forehead.
“Sleep, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m not tired.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m not tired at all,” she whispered.
I woke again hours later as she was climbing back into bed, her skin so cool and smelling of night. She pressed her back to my chest.
I trapped her in my arms. I locked her ankle with my heel.
“Where have you been?”
She moved against me until I was inside her.
“I went for a walk.”
“In the forest?”
“There’s so much light out there,” she said.
“I would have gone with you.”
I moved my hand between her legs.
“I know.”
“It’s dangerous, Tess.”
“It’s not,” she said. “It’s fine.”
She broke free and rolled me hard onto my back.
“What could possibly happen, Joe?”
Then she was on top of me, her hands pinning my wrists.
“Will I be torn apart by wolves?”
She laughed. Her teeth were on my neck.
She let go and rode upright, her hands on her breasts, nipples between her fingers. I watched her moving above me, her open mouth, her eyes closed, her hair swinging forward and back, face flashing dark and silver in the moonlight.
She was loud that night, and after she’d come, fell asleep almost immediately.