—
When she woke the fire was low and Sunny sat staring into the flames. She feared the night was already dissolving, the world no longer at bay. She pulled her blanket tighter.
“What time is it?”
“Past three.”
“I passed out.”
“It’s OK.”
“It’s cold.”
“There’s more wood to burn.” He reached out and built up the fire, then shifted back and lay down. “Come here.”
She crawled in the space between his body and the flames. He wrapped his arms around her, and she shivered and pressed herself into him. He slid his warm fingers under the blanket, under her clothes, rested their tips around her belly button, toyed with the cold flesh. She closed her eyes again and her breathing shallowed, and he slipped his hand inside her.
“It can’t stay like this,” she said.
“No,” he replied. “It can get better.”
She turned to him. “You promise?”
He lifted his fingers and touched them to his tongue.
“You taste like the sea.”
“An oyster,” she said.
He settled his hand on her hip.
He couldn’t promise her anything.
But she could feel his hardness.
“I love,” he said, “that you never asked if I loved you.”
“I love,” she replied, “that you never needed me to say it.”
* * *
—
It was five a.m. He’d come inside her, and holding her, he’d fallen asleep. Now the crows were calling from the pines.
“They’re coming back in.”
Sunny opened his eyes.
Santosh and his brothers were hauling their boats up the beach.
He still had her in his arms.
She rolled free and turned to him.
“The chains of existence,” she said, “have to be weak enough to break.” She kissed him. “But strong enough to carry you through in the first place.” She turned to face the stars. “By the way . . . Happy birthday.”
LONDON, 2006
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
DATE: 2/25/2006
SUBJECT:
Dean,
Do you know how many times I’ve composed this mail? This fucking mail to you a thousand times, in my head, in so many ways, when I’m walking, walking is the only time my thoughts flow, so long as I’m walking I can justify it all, but to compose I have to stop, and the page robs me. It’s even worse when I begin to write. Every pretty phrase that rolled off my tongue becomes a trap. I can’t tell the truth. I don’t know how to anymore. I used to be so good at telling the truth. I was so good at telling the truth that I discovered it was easy to tell a lie. Do you understand me? I told enough lies to you. I couldn’t tell one from the other in the end.
What I’m trying now is to tell you about Sunny Wadia.
I hate the name. I avoid it if I can. Those syllables. But I can’t avoid them today. Right now, the early morning of the 25th. Two years since that night where everything was destroyed. The ghosts come out tonight. I’m drinking vodka. Remembering. When I remember I’m a mess. But forgetting is even worse, forgetting is memory’s lining. I thought I could escape, I’ve been rubbing pages out, but it doesn’t work.