The Stars Are Fire(43)

She wants to absorb every note, every combination of notes. She wants it all, especially the intimacy of it. It’s not the god-awful joy that Rosie once spoke of, but it must be close. Or perhaps this is an even grander sensation, one she will never be able to explain to her friend.

Grace wishes she and Aidan had never spoken, from the first day she met him until now. How wonderful if they had communicated only by music every one of the nine days they have had together. She wouldn’t have seen that he was good with the children or that he could make her smile with his charm; she wouldn’t know who Dvo?ák was. But every night, he would have done this to her as she sat in her chair, helpless and spellbound.

He plays, and she drifts along the curvature of the earth.

He plays, and her body is flooded with gratitude.

He plays, and she understands that the end is coming.

When he stops, she can’t speak. Words will break the trance, will sound trivial and trite. She’d have to wish him good luck, and he’d return the phrase. Perhaps he’d tell her that he would write to her. And everything they had just experienced would be punctured by the commonplace.

When he walks by her, he holds out his hand.


Wordlessly, in the dark of the library, he lights a candle by the bed. The music has already undressed her, so that the removal of the sweater and skirt, the brassiere and slip, the girdle and her stockings, seems unremarkable. When she is naked, he gazes at her in the low light, and she isn’t ashamed. He drapes the sheets back, and she slides into the bed, the sheets silky and smooth. She does what she has wanted to do for so long, she bares her neck as she drapes herself across his body, and he kisses her there, allowing her to kiss his skin. He touches her everywhere, sliding his hand down her calf to her foot; running his hand from her breast down her flank. Neither says a word.

Inside her head, the music is still playing, or perhaps this is an entirely new piece, one with more urgency, the beat faster, the fingers flying. He pauses to protect himself, to protect her, and he slides into her with ease. As he raises himself up by his arms, his eyes scan her face. She shifts her hips and arches her back to take him in. She grips his back. Another man might say that he loved her, but Grace doesn’t need that. Aidan is slow, holding back, and she experiences the buildup of a different kind of crescendo. She feels it rise up through her toes to the insides of her thighs, a crescendo with many more notes in it than any piece of music, one than continues to climb, and she knows that he can see the moment of her intense pleasure, which feels like liquid flooding through her veins. She’s certain she said something, an ecstatic word in a language all her own, a word that causes him to focus on his own crescendo. His eyes fix on hers. He makes his own sound and bends his head.

He pulls her toward him, so that her head rests in the crook of his arm. She floats—placid and perfect. His breathing changes, and she knows the moment he loses consciousness. She thinks it lovely to have him sleeping beside her, as if they were indeed a couple, as if they had all the time in the world. She will leave him before he wakes so that there will be no need to say goodbye.


For the first time in a week, Grace sleeps so deeply that when she opens her eyes, the children are already up. She puts on her robe and runs downstairs.

“He’s gone,” her mother says.

Grace is silent.

“He took his suitcase.”

Again, she doesn’t speak.

“He stripped his bed,” her mother adds.



Snow



Against the windows, the snow falls in dry sheets. The wind thumps at the front of the house, and from some of the rooms Grace can hear it howl. She prepares a fire, but won’t light it until the power goes out, nearly inevitable in a nor’easter. Her mother collects all the candles she can find and sets them in holders or sticks them to dessert plates by lighting the wicks and letting hot wax drip to the dishes. Grace checks the cupboards and refrigerator for food and supplies and decides that Aidan has done a good job of provisioning the house. They can live on what they have for at least five days.

Aidan. She puts her forehead to the cold glass of the window. She wants to howl like the wind.

She won’t wash Aidan’s sheets until the storm is over. If she did, and the machine stopped mid-wash, the linens would be coated with soap for days. Alone, in a darkened corner, she lifts the bundle to her face. She can smell Aidan on them. Would she be able to smell herself? She is tempted to look for evidence of their time together, but she drops the sheets to the floor.

She pictures the train he was on moving away from the storm as it made its way toward Boston. There, she imagines, he will walk to his audition if he can’t find a taxi. She glances at her watch: 11:20. How many hours since he made love to her? Thirteen?


By two o’clock in the afternoon, two feet of snow has fallen. When the sun sets, three feet push against the sides of the house. All day, Grace has been shoveling to keep the steps and a short path clear, though what good it will do them, she can’t imagine. It’s a path to nowhere—not to a car, not to the street. She supposes she ought to have shoveled to the barn, but for what purpose?

She has a wild and desperate urge to put on her coat and hat and gloves and slide down to the street and walk south in hopes of catching a ride to Boston. Can it be done?

The snow is too deep and she wouldn’t be able to tell the road from the beach. She might wander into the sea. She might lose her balance in the blizzard and fall into a snowbank and die there.