Elmo hasn’t knocked in weeks. Just walks in, calls hello, sees Taz at the kitchen table.
“Hidy ho, neighbor,” she says, and lobs something at him. It bounces. Skids across the table. Stops against his forearm. A little box. Candy hearts. With the lame sayings. BE MINE. BE TRUE. FOREVER. The same he’d scattered all over their bed. What, last year? The year before?
Taz looks at the box, like he’s never seen such a thing before.
“Settle down,” she says. “They’re for Midge. But I thought I’d get the okay from you first.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Looks pretty choke-inducing. Even without the words.”
“I kind of thought so, too. But, you know, all my admirers, this is just like recycling.”
Elmo starts into the bedroom for Midge, who squawks, has slept late. A first. She says, clear as a bell, “Ma, ma, ma.”
Candies still in his hand, Taz leaps for the shop before she can come out of the bedroom. Minimizing Midge’s separation problems, he tells himself.
He opens the stove doors, pushes in the first crumpled paper, the sticks, short ends of moldings, scraps. Lights the match. When he’s added the dimensional, the final log, he slips his hand into his pocket, throws the candies in before he can read one KISS ME. Closes the door as fast as he can.
He goes and sits at his bench. Turns the chair so he faces the stove. Waits for the first trace of warmth.
They’d thought they’d cleared all the hearts off the bed, but later, afterward, he found one stuck to Marn’s hip, laughed, pulled it off, the FOREVER transferred to her skin, a sweet, crimson tattoo he’d licked away.