JOY

“Come for a minute,” Luke says.

I have my dog. I bring her whenever I can, just in case. She’s curled by the woodstove.

Luke says, “Here.” Toward the bed. A tiny smile.

I feel his hand on my neck. At the same time, I hear the sound of snowplows on the road trying to keep up with the snow. I hear a bell buoy. I hear a melody that I have heard sometime in my life, and I hear the words of the title but I don’t know what they mean. Pka Proheam Rik Popreay.

In his bed, I try to keep my eyes on the alarm clock. But we disappear. He touches my cheek. I lean into him. “Oh,” he whispers. “Oh.” I close my eyes. His palm presses a line from my cheekbone down to my jaw. I have never felt anything as charged as my jaw in this second. It becomes the total focus of my body. He traces my lips. I feel my body release. I see a small trace of moonlight enter the cottage window. His hands run down my legs still in snow pants against the cold. His hand is hard and sweet and hungry. I laugh because I have on my snow pants. I unzip them and slide my legs out of them and Luke covers my legs with his.

He draws my hair back from my face and smiles at my laughing.

“Just to touch you,” he says.

I have no words to answer. I can only nod, yes.

He takes off my layers, piece by piece. I watch his face. I say, “We are really doing this.”

He says, “We are really.”

I help him undress, feeling his heat.

Under the covers, I take his hand in my two and we are drunk with joy. Surprising out-of-nowhere joy. It is like we have found this beautiful oasis while the moonlight fills the window and the buoy sounds, and the ocean is just an ocean. It’s not calling me or haunting. I run my hand over his, then bring his palm to my mouth and kiss him. I laugh again. Even a palm sends a charge through my body. I kiss his neck. He pulls me back to look at my face. His expression has become serious and searching. He draws my body to his. We feel our bodies hip bone to hip bone. We don’t talk. We float in this place of moonlight and touch.

We kiss for years. Years pass while I place my hand on his chest and his thighs.

I lie on him, feeling him, while we kiss. “Just imagine,” I laugh. He laughs. For a few years we are ecstatic, joyous children over what we have just discovered. The joy of our simple bodies.

- - -

We are on our backs looking at the knots in the ceiling. They are gorgeous knots.

“I was just letting my mind run,” I whisper.

“Where?” he says.

“What are you doing this summer?”

“I live a day at a time.”

“We are making a string of days,” I say.

I roll into him and I’m laughing again. “This is our house. We’ll paint the whole place . . . what color?”

“Grecian green.”

“Grecian green,” I agree. “Then we’ll raise seven or so kids.”

“This summer?” he says.

“And go someplace warm.”

“How about Savannah?” he says.

“Okay,” I say, “Savannah. We’ll get in the car and just keep on driving. Till the ice falls away and the blacktop shows. And the forsythia’s blooming.”

“Okay,” he says.

“We can do anything,” I say. “What else would you want? If you could have anything.”

“Stop by Jeannotte’s Market in Nashua. I used to get subs there when I was a kid. I lived around the corner.”

He holds me and presses his lips into my throat, a bridge of kisses across my collarbone.

He whispers, “I want to sleep. Do people sleep in Savannah? We’re outta here, girl.”

This is all possible even though in the background I remember like a song—eleven paces kitchen to the back door, plus four to circle the chair, six around the table, repeat four times, the rustle of cellophane at the door, the click of the lighter, the smell of the smoke, repeat until . . .