Chapter 4 #3
“I’ll get a dog,” I told him, and we both heard the dodge in it.
A dog is warm and faithful and a fine excuse to take walks at dawn when the mist rides low over the fields.
A dog will nuzzle your palm and lie at your feet and watch you with trust bright as a coin.
A dog is not a hand taking yours in a kitchen and saying without words, I see you.
Not a mouth that kisses you like eating and hunger and thank you all at once.
Not a steady voice that says, without flourish, call me if you need anything, and means it.
I lie back and stare at the ceiling. The plaster cracks look like maps if I squint, rivers and roads and fields, the kind of maps you see in old books where the oceans are sea serpents and the corners hold wind gods.
I trace one crack with my eyes until it ends in the corner above the closet, then follow another.
After a while, the ache in my chest loosens into something softer.
At some point, the house settles again. Old pipes click, the wind noses the eaves, the clock in the living room chimes into the next hour. I must drift, because I wake to silence so deep it rings. I sit up, listening. The air smells like cold and old wood.
In the dark, my hand reaches for the phone.
I hold it, thumb hovering over the screen.
I could text. Thank you for the stew. Dad ate well.
I could add, I’m sorry I kissed you. I could add, I’m not sorry.
I could add nothing and just hit send. Instead, I set the phone face down on the nightstand and press the heel of my hand to my mouth until the urge to say something passes.
Tomorrow I will make oatmeal with cinnamon the way Dad likes it.
I will call the clinic and leave a message with his numbers for the day.
I will start a load of laundry and hang it where the afternoon sun finds the back porch.
I will read another three pages. I will take out the trash and fix the squeak in the hall hinge and change the filter that glares at me from the heater grate like I’ve insulted its family.
And then, maybe, I will stand at the sink and look out at the lane and imagine a car turning in, quiet, steady, the kind of car a man drives when he doesn’t need the world to notice him to know he matters.
Maybe I will imagine him stepping out with his medical bag and something covered in foil, and I will tell myself I only care what’s in the bag.
The room is all hush and breath when I turn the lamp off, the kind of darkness that seems to lean in instead of closing me out.
The sheets are cool at first, then slowly take on my heat, and the ceiling fan murmurs like a distant river.
I lie there, eyes open, watching faint shapes settle into softer shadows.
My mind keeps sliding back to his mouth on mine, to the way the world narrowed to that single point where our breaths met.
I press my palm flat to my chest and feel my heart answering, a quickened flutter that refuses to quiet.
The cotton of my nightshirt brushes my skin when I shift, and that simple friction sends a shiver rolling through me.
I let my hand wander without any plan, more curiosity than intent, tracing the line of my collarbone, down the curve of my ribs, lingering where warmth gathers beneath my palm.
My breath changes of its own accord, growing deeper, a little unsteady, as if my body is remembering what my mind will not let go of.
I close my eyes and picture Caleb’s thumb along my jaw, the steadiness of him, the way he held me like I mattered. The image steadies me even as it stirs something molten and quiet inside. My toes curl against the mattress, then relax. My shoulders ease, then tighten again.
The house creaks, distant and ordinary, but in my bed everything feels suspended, stretched thin and luminous.
I sink into it, letting sensation ripple through me like slow waves, my breath catching, releasing, catching again.
There is no rush, no destination, just the dark wrapping around me and the memory of his hands guiding my body toward a place that feels both dangerous and safe.
The darkness feels thicker now, almost alive, pressing gently around me while my own breathing fills the space between the sheets.
I lie there with my body tuned to itself, every nerve ending alert, every small shift of skin against cotton sending a quiet tremor through me.
Heat gathers low and deep, not sharp, not frantic, but widening, swelling like a tide that keeps lifting higher no matter how much I tell myself to stay still.
My hand moves slowly, more instinct than intention, roaming over my own body as if I am learning its contours all over again.
My chest rises, falls, rises again, each breath pulled a little tighter through my throat.
The memory of him threads through it all, the weight of his gaze, the steadiness of his hands, the way his mouth felt like home.
My muscles begin to tremble, a fine, electric shiver that starts in my belly and ripples outward until even my toes curl against the mattress.
The sensation crests without warning, rushing through me in a bright, spreading wave that steals my breath and blurs the edges of the room.
For a heartbeat I feel as if I am floating above myself, watching my body arch and soften, hearing the small, broken sound that slips from my lips.
My head turns into the pillow, my cheek brushing the fabric, and I bite down gently as the release unfurls through me.
His name tumbles out, muffled, almost lost in the cotton, but heavy with want and recognition.
My body bows toward it, then eases, the tension melting into something warm and trembling.
I lie there, chest heaving, senses still alight, every part of me humming with the echo of what just passed through me.
I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I only know that when Dr. Caleb Chambers looked at me in my kitchen, something in me lifted its head and listened.
"Good night, Caleb," I whisper into the darkness.
I imagine him asleep in his apartment across town, unaware that I'm lying here thinking about him. Unaware that after all these years, saying his name still feels a little like coming home.
I close my eyes. The house breathes. For once, I let myself breathe with it and drift off to sleep.