She looked up. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

“I was very spooked.”

“I’m not talking about spooked, I’m talking about life. If I’d answered the telephone and heard some state trooper in New York calling to say you were dead, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” She closed her eyes. “I might have gone mad. Yeah, I think I’d have gone crazy. I thought about you unendingly when you were gone, Max. Like I was sixteen again and in love for the first time. I passed a flower store and wanted to go in and get you some for your desk, those white tulips you like so much. Even though you weren’t here. I bought stupid little presents and hid them under your pillow. I couldn’t wait to hear what you’d say. But so what, that’s love, right? Remember I told you when I masturbate, my fantasy is always a faceless man who makes love to me? Even that changed. When I did it this time it was you there, and the more I could remember about you, your voice or the way your hands touch me, the hotter I got. I masturbated all the time, Max. You and I fucked and fucked and couldn’t get enough. We never got tired. We did it on beaches, in cars, other people’s beds, everywhere. One time I imagined us doing it on Ibrahim’s desk in the back of the restaurant. It was so strong. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted you so much.” She stood up. “Come on, let’s do it now while Lincoln’s out.”

“Lily—”

“No, I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to think about dying or you being away. It was hard enough for that short time. I want to make love now and smell you. I want that great smell all around me. I just want more right now, Max. Okay? Tell me your other stuff later. Come on.” She took my hand and pulled me toward the bedroom. More erotic than anything was the way she held my hand. She kept squeezing it and letting it go slack, as if her hand itself had its own pulse, or a way of hurried breathing. Squeeze, stop, squeeze, stop.

She wore purple socks. White sneakers and purple socks. She sat on the bed and flipped her shoes off but kept the socks on. The silver belt buckle on her jeans was jerked open, then the stttttrrrrutttt when the pants buttons came undone one fast after the other.

“Hurry. Hurry hurry hurry.” She pulled the sweater over her head and she wore no bra. Her breasts dropped heavily out of the soft wool. She sat in bikini panties, arms stretched behind her, and watched while I wrestled out of my clothes. When my slacks were off, she reached into my underpants and touched my cock. Her hands were freezing cold. I almost jumped back. She wouldn’t let go. Pulling me gently toward her, she took it in her mouth and the cold-to-warm was so sharp and quick that I felt my knees almost go. Lily didn’t like sucking cock because it made her feel cheap and whorey. Knowing that, I never asked her to do it. What good is sex when it’s not wanted? So was this a one-of-a-kind welcome-home gift, or did she genuinely desire to do it? Unsure, I eased myself out of her mouth and knelt down so we were face to face. “Don’t. You don’t have to—“

“I want to.”

“No. The other’s enough.” Pushing her back on the bed, I pinned her arms above her head and ran my tongue up the long course of her neck. Her throat worked up and down and I thought she was trying to swallow. But then she began crying, gasping. I got off her. She lay on her back, arms above as if still held down. Eyes open, tears rolled down the sides of her face in a steady stream.

“I missed you so much. I got scared, I missed you so goddamned much. It’s not right to be like that; it’s not healthy. I’m not a weak person. I’m not, but look at how I was acting. You weren’t even gone that long.” She lifted her head off the bed and looked at me. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. You could kill me with it if you wanted. You could twist me in half.”

Walking in an hour before, I was resolved to have it out. Face her with what I knew and demand an explanation. But my resolve began slipping with Lincoln’s happy greetings and many kisses. Now this.

Staring her in the eye, I said the truth but she naturally misunderstood. “I know you.”

“You know me better than anyone. Better than anyone ever has.”

“I know you.”

“Yes. Fuck me.”

“All these things you haven’t”—I entered her hard—“told me!”

“Yes.” Her legs wrapped around my waist. I felt the socks on my back. Her arms tightened around my neck. “Secrets. Crybaby. Secrets.”

“I hate them.”

She stopped moving.

“I hate your secrets.”

The fear on her face turned into a smile. “Take them. Take them all. Fuck me now. You can have them all.”

I pushed as hard as I could. She closed her eyes, chuckled.

“I want them. Promise me—”

“Just do this now. Yes, that. Whatever you want. Whatever you want. You…”

It was so good. And when it was over, the boy would come home and we three would sit at the kitchen table and be a family again.

Lily came quickly, which was not like her, but then kept pumping and moving, keeping it going as long as she could. “Max, I love you. Oh, Max.” She rose and fell. Her eyes were shut above a huge smile. I watched. Half of me swam in her like a sea, the other half watched. Watched her from as far away as the moon.

“Absence makes the heart lose weight.”

Gus Duveen looked at Ibrahim like he was a bad smell. “What does that mean?”

“This is a saying in Saru. It is what Lily felt when Max was not here. I had an uncle who married a woman who turned into paper. This is not uncommon, but he did not know it until it was almost too late.”

Squeezing my knee under the table, Lily leaned over and whispered, “I love Ibrahim’s stories.”

“My uncle went on a business trip to Umm Hujul and met a woman there. They fell madly in love and he asked to marry her. This was all right and everything went according to plan. After the wedding, they returned to Saru and he created a household for her. Then he is a businessman, so he must go out and return to work. He is a traveling salesman all over the Middle East but no big worry. He told his new wife he would be coming back every week to see her. Now, the first time he returned, she was happy to see him but was much, much lighter. When he picks her up in bed, she almost floats out of his arms. ‘You must eat something!’ he says, but they are so glad to see each other nothing more is said about it. The next time he returns to his house, she is fifteen times lighter. She can walk on water now, but no one is impressed because she is not holy, only skinny. My uncle thinks this is not love, but blackmail: this is her way of making him stay at home. So he tells her he did not marry a balloon, and if she wants to lift off the earth, he will not be interested in her anymore. Desperate, she says, ‘Take me with you and I will do anything.’ ‘Are you crazy? Women do not go with men to their business.’ But she is very stubborn and says, ‘Well then, unless I can be near you always, I will lose the rest of my weight and disappear. I cannot help it. My body loves you too and has its own mind. I don’t want to die, but if it wants to it will, husband.’”

Lily caressed the inside of my thigh. Since returning from New York, I’d experienced a completely new side of her: hungry, worried, agitated. We made love more than ever before, but her body stayed tight as a strung bow and never seemed to relax. Even when we’d finished and lay there in the calm dark, I felt her tension. Too soon she would want to start again and I had to catch up to her desire. Out of the bedroom, she was overly bright and peppy. There were few quiet moments anymore; out of the bedroom everything had to be either in motion or in the planning stage. I had the feeling she instinctively knew what I’d discovered and wanted to steer our lives away from that moment of truth, that moment of impact. As long as she kept moving, talking, planning… the disastrous facts could be avoided. Yet how could she know what I’d found? I knew about women’s eerie sense of intuition, but did it go this far? Were they that clairvoyant?