"Come here to me, you monster," she said at once, in a low teasing voice, hugging him tightly, kissing him all over his face and neck. "Look at this dark hair, hmmm, and these blue eyes. I was beginning to think I dreamed every minute of you."
He held her so tightly he must have been hurting her. He wanted a moment of nothing but holding her.
She drew him towards the back bedroom. She was rosy-cheeked and radiant, her hair beautifully mussed and fuller than he'd remembered, certainly more blond than he'd remembered, full of sunlight, it seemed to him, and her expression struck him as sly and deliciously intimate.
There was a comforting blaze in the black-iron Franklin stove. And a couple of little glass-shade lamps lighted on either side of the oak bed with its soft lumpy faded quilts and lace-trimmed pillows.
She pulled the covers down and helped him take off his shirt and jacket and pants. The air was warm and dry and sweet, as it always was in her house, her little lair.
He was weak with relief, but that lasted only a few seconds, and then he was kissing her as if they'd never been separated. Not too fast, not too fast, he kept telling himself, but it didn't do any good. This was hotter, all this, more exuberant and pinely rough.
They lay together after, dozing, as the rain trickled down the panes. He woke with a start, and turned to see her with her eyes open looking at the ceiling. The only light came from the kitchen. And food was cooking there. He could smell it. Roast chicken and red wine. He knew that fragrance well enough and he was suddenly too hungry to think of anything else.
They had dinner together at the round oak table, Reuben in a terry-cloth robe she'd found for him, and Laura in one of those lovely white flannel gowns she so loved. This one was trimmed with a bit of blue embroidery and blue ribbon on the collar and cuffs and placket, and it had blue buttons, a flattering complement to her dazzled, confidential smile, and her glowing skin.
They said nothing as they ate the meal, Reuben devouring everything as always, and Laura to his surprise actually eating her food rather than pushing it around on her plate.
A stillness fell over them when they'd finished. The fire was snapping and rustling in the living room fireplace. And the whole little house seemed safe and strong against the rain that hammered on the roof and the panes. What had it been like to grow up under this roof? He couldn't imagine. Morphenkind or not, he realized, the great woods still represented for him a wilderness.
This was something he loved, that they did not make small talk, that they could go hours without talking, that they talked without talking, but what were they saying to one another, without words, just now?
She sat motionless in the oak chair with only her left hand on the table, her right hand in her lap. It seemed she'd been watching him as he cleaned the plate, and he sensed it now and sensed something particularly enticing about her, about the fullness of her lips and the mass of her hair that framed her face.
Then it came over him, came over him like a chill stealing over his face and neck. Why in the world hadn't he realized immediately.
"You've done it," he whispered. "You've taken the Chrism."
She didn't answer. It was as if he hadn't spoken at all.