the heat without it being hazardous to their health.
“Hi,” she said, slender leg bent at the knee. He couldn’t pretend her appearance was entirely unwelcome, that the sensation of her body around his wasn’t the stuff that papered his dreams, though he did feel some apprehension about the mere feet separating her and his wife. He realized with a start that he had never seen her in the daytime, and that it did not suit her, as there was something about her too messy to fit into the neat, hi-def panels of afternoon. He too felt a little self-conscious, thought of an acne scar on his face that had never faded properly.
He could tell that she was distracted by the child in his arms. She smiled and asked if she could hold it, and he handed the child over. She clutched it to her chest without any awkwardness. He looked down at her magnetic boots.
“A girl, huh?” she said with a crooked smile. The baby yawned and she smiled down at it. “What a lucky one. What’s her name?”
“Alice,” he said, and she tilted her head.
“Very English,” she said, looking back down at the child. He made some noise of agreement.
“She won’t have to go through what I went through in elementary school,” he said, and they held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Of course he knew it was unlikely she was going to even make it to kindergarten. Of course he knew that if she lived that long, perhaps her name would be the least of her worries.
Talking with such optimism in the face of apparent extinction made him feel that he appeared weak, unable to confront what was inevitable. But he did it for his wife, who asked him to speak like this for sake of their own quality of life. At least, he started out doing it for her. He would call his parents and find himself still talking the same way.
“Do you think about me, at all?” she said. His fingertips tingled with the silken memory of her hair.
“Of course,” he breathed, thinking of her running naked through the hot, rippling air.
22 | Psychopomp Magazine