Conscious of how foolish he must look, shirtless and unarmed, he sat down in the nearest chair. “You couldn’t sleep either, I see,” he said.
She gave him a strange look but nodded. “Would you like a glass of warm milk? It does work, you know. I’m making myself one.”
“Warm milk?”
“To help you sleep.”
“To help me sleep,” he repeated, catching the flying edge of memory, of a slender hand pouring the steaming white contents of a pot into a mug. “Sure,” he said. “Thank you.”
He watched as she set about her preparations, pouring milk into an enameled pot, placing two mugs on the counter, removing a wooden spoon from the drawer. She turned the jet on beneath the pot, glancing back at him over the rumpled shoulder of her T-shirt.
“Chilly? There’s a jacket behind the door.”
He hadn’t been inclined to say so, but once again she had read him without a need for words. He frowned and rose, moving to the hook she indicated to take down a faded sweatshirt jacket. Matt’s? Why had she kept so many of his things?
He shoved his arms into the sleeves and jerked the zipper up before he sat back down. At the stove, she stirred the heating milk with one hand and put the other hand in the pocket of her holey sweats. The overhead light glinted in the sun-streaked highlights of her hair. Her shoulders hunched forward as if she, too, were chilled. Another jacket hung on a second hook, a smaller version of the one he now wore. He retrieved the garment and held it out to her. Without a word, she put it on.
This time he didn’t sit down but turned his hips against the countertop and crossed his arms over his chest. “May I ask you something?”
She glanced up and away, but she didn’t say no.
“Do you miss your husband?”
Ignoring him, she continued with the task at hand.
“Is that why you have his clothes still?” Caleb persisted, trying to understand. “To remind you of him?”
“I don’t need that sort of reminder,” she said, studying the steam rising from the pot. Judging the milk hot enough, she poured it into the mugs and flicked the burner off.
“Then why?”
Carrying both mugs to the table, she paused, pivoting on her heel. “I don’t know. It’s not exactly like I miss him. But I haven’t wanted to get rid of anything of his. Call me a fool, if you need, but I’d like to know what makes you so certain that’s not a normal course of events.”
His mouth twisted at her tone. “I’m not entirely certain, which is why I’m asking. However, I’ve some inkling that people usually pack up the belongings of the…of people who aren’t around anymore,” he finished, crossing the linoleum to take his mug and sit down.
She pulled out the chair across from him, then lowered herself slowly to the seat. “Well,” she murmured, “so they do.” She said no more as she lifted the steaming mug to her mouth and drank. He drank, too, contemplating the curve of her lashes on her lowered lids.
After a moment, she placed her mug on the table. “How are you feeling?”
The color of her eyes reminded him of the horizon on a still, clear evening as the sun went down, the sky a blanket of velvet, the only light that brilliant line of green…
For the love of God, where the hell had that come from? Alarmed, he looked down at the table at the scratch of a word he still couldn’t decipher. “Fine… Better, I mean. Not fine. I still can’t remember anything.”
She hooked the handle of her mug with her forefinger, moving the receptacle back and forth. “Caleb is a fine New Englander’s name, but I don’t think you’re from around here.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, feeling a spark of something he recognized as dread.
“You don’t have the accent. I don’t either, so I recognize when it’s missing. I’m from Pennsylvania originally.”
“Pennsylvania,” he echoed. The name meant nothing to him.
He watched her draw breath, take another sip, and set the mug back down. She tucked a handful of tangled hair behind her ear. “I looked in the phone book. And online. I couldn’t find anything that would lead to revelations about who you are.”
He nodded, not sure what she was talking about. The only thing clear to him was that she still had no idea who he might be or where he belonged. Lifting his mug, he drained the contents, scalding his tongue. “Ouch.”
She smiled, a small turn of her lips. “You all right?”
“I’m all right,” he said.
He wanted to touch her hand, her face, lean across the table and kiss her mouth, take his time, savor the sweetness of her lips and the residue of warm milk on her tongue. Instead, he stood up in a hurry and carried his empty mug to the sink.
“Matt used to do that,” she said from the table.
Oh, God, he thought, remembering how clearly she read him. “Do what?” he asked, not turning around.
“Not wait for the milk to cool. He was always burning himself.”
He let his breath out as he ran water into the heavy mug. When he spun back toward the table, she held her own close to her chin, staring off into middle space. Not wanting to intrude on her memories, he thanked her and left the kitchen to return to the guest room and his narrow, empty bed.
* * * *
Meg listened to the creak of the floorboards in the spare room above, followed by the slow groan of the bed frame. She lowered her mug to the table and stared down into the cooled remnants, the film of scalded milk shifting on top.
Yes, Matt used to do that before he climbed the stairs to shower or to bed, where he would wait for her to finish in the kitchen and join him. He would lean across the table and kiss her long and deeply in invitation while the flavor of warm milk was still shared in their mouths. Back when he still wanted her, when he’d leap up hard in anticipation of heated flesh, slick, private places, and the intoxication of abandon.
She let her breath out in a quiet sigh. Odd to find this stranger wanted to kiss her, too. Possibly, he possessed some psychic sensitivity of his own. Since he could bring forth no personal memories, he was perhaps more receptive to hers, reflecting them as if he and she were two mirrors held face to face, silvered surfaces casting back into infinity the image of the other until the origin could no longer be discerned.
After a moment, she got up to rinse her mug, then dried her fingers on the leg of her sweatpants. Turning out the light, she gazed through the window at the softly illuminated sea. She impatiently dismissed her theory as she recognized its distinct flaw.
Reflection would be impossible because nothing reflective existed in the darkness where she lived.
Exiting the kitchen, Meg headed to the living room, her destination before she’d heard Caleb descending the stairs. Some half-recalled sense of protectiveness had apparently urged him out of his bed to investigate. She was used to wandering around in the dark in her own home and hadn’t given it a thought, but she really hadn’t meant to startle him. Alarm couldn’t be good for him in his condition.
The ambient light through the windows from outside bled the color from the carpet in the center of the hardwood floor. Deep shadows hid the identity of furnishings, but Meg knew every stick and its location by heart. She crossed with an unerring step to the hutch, a shade of gray–brown in the night. Opening the door, she gazed into the dark interior, the drawers hidden but for the dull gleam of the keyholes. What had led Caleb here? What errant thought of hers had entered his mind and made him curious?
She had watched him cross the floor as if drawn to the aged piece of furniture, saw him reach right out, open the