The Surrendered

“It’s all right,” she said. “You can keep going, if you want.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes you do. Just kiss me.”

“How?”

“However you want to.”

“Just kiss you?”

“Yes.”

And when he did she was surprised by them both, their shared ignorance in the act an object lesson in how experience only mattered if one let it, his mapping of her with the gentlest, humblest fervor i

The pattern of the evening was reprised each time she visited him, once a week throughout that winter, Sylvie staying with him until five, when the first buses began ru

It was soon after she was introduced to Ames Ta

Ames Ta

So it was with foreknowledge that it would be the last time that she went to Jim. But once there, she couldn’t bear to say anything; he had brought her a bouquet of dried flowers that night, in addition to the root beer and of course the half-pint bottle, its glass the color of dark caramels. He’d tacked different fabrics on the walls. For the first time in many weeks she declined to take her sips (he’d had to buy extra bottles from his friend at the hospital), and as he slowly twisted the cap back on, his expression was that of a prisoner being led down into an isolation hole, regarding her as the man might check the sky. She thanked him for the flowers and hugged and kissed him and he hugged her back stiffly.

“Should I turn off the light?” she asked him.

“Okay.”

But in the customary dark she had some trouble finding him. “Over here,” he said, from the far corner. When they touched it was a minor collision, the crown of her head against his chin. He was sitting up rather than lying on the curtain he had spread out, and before she could apologize he took her shoulders and pi

She waited to leave until he thought she was asleep and had gone on his rounds. It was cowardly of her, but he hadn’t said a word to her after their lovemaking and she thought it would be a mercy for them both if she simply disappeared. But it was still an hour before the buses began ru

Ames took her to lunch the following week, and to the movie theater and di

He did ask, however, as he drove her back to her aunt’s house in his Packard sedan (his family was wealthy, being prominent in the timber business), whether she’d had serious boyfriends in her life, or any present suitors, and she immediately said no, though flashing on Jim. Ames nodded, still quite serious but obviously pleased. She hadn’t volunteered again at that particular soup kitchen, but she couldn’t help but think about Jim sitting in the dim factory office, the various curtains still tacked on the walls, nursing his bottle of the tincture. At certain moments late at night she craved the taste of it terribly, and longed for him as well, and she found she could master both impulses by kneading herself raw with the back of her thumb until the sensation was only, solely, painful; she would make her body quell its own urges with an even sharper reality. For she knew she must not hide out any longer. She must climb out from every cave of her making. Ames ’s presence in her life and his interest in her parents was in fact a blessing; he would bring her forth, even if her memories of those last hours might be fully rekindled.