"Sure," she said. She couldn't remember ever having a honey sandwich in her life. She watched him pull the honey out of the jar, white and creamy, and spread it thickly on a slice of bread.
"Lid or no lid?" he asked.
"No lid," she said. She picked it up and bit into it and it was wonderful. He bit into his. A thin strand of honey stretched between his mouth and the bread, then broke, leaving a thread of honey down his chin.
"It's messy, but I don't care," he said.
"Where do you buy bread like this?"
"Jaynanne makes it," he said.
Of course. Of course she makes bread.
"Where is everybody?" she asked.
"Went home," said Doug. "Don't worry about a ride. They all had wives waiting for them, and I don't, so I said I'd take you home."
"No, I don't want you to have to go out on a night like this."
"I figured we'd leave a note on Minnie's door telling her you'd be late tomorrow."
"No," said Rainie. "I'll be there on time."
"It's after midnight."
"I've slept less and done more the next day. But I hate to have you have to drive me."
"So what would you do, walk?"
I'd sleep in your bed, Rainie said silently. I'd get up in the morning and we'd make breakfast together, and we'd eat it together, and then when the kids got up we'd fix another breakfast for them, and they'd laugh with us and be glad to see us. And we'd smile at each other and remember the sweetness in the dark, the secret that the children would never understand until twenty, thirty years from now. The secret that I'm only beginning to understand tonight.
"Thanks, I'll ride," said Rainie.
"Dad's out seeing to the dog. He worries that the dog gets too cold on nights like this."
"What, does he heat the doghouse?"
"Yes, he does," said Douglas. "He keeps bricks just inside the fireplace and then when he puts the fire out at night he wraps the hot bricks in a cloth and carries them outside and puts them in the doghouse."
"Does the dog appreciate it?"
"He sleeps inside with the bricks. He wags his tail. I guess he does." Douglas's bread was gone. She reached up and wiped the honey off his chin with her finger, then licked her finger clean.
"Thanks," he said.
But she could hear more in his voice than he meant to say. She could hear that faint tremble in his voice, the hesitation, the uncertainty. He could have interpreted her gesture as motherly. He could have taken it as a sisterly act. But he did not. Instead he was taking it the way she meant it, and yet he wasn't sure that she really meant it that way.
"Better go," he said. "Morning comes awful early."
They bundled up and went outside. They met Grandpa coming around the front of the house. "Night," Grandpa said.
"Night," said Rainie. "It was good talking to you."
"My pleasure entirely," he said. He sounded perfectly cheerful, which surprised her. Why should it surprise her?
Because I'm planning to do what he warned me not to do, thought Rainie. I'm planning to sleep with Douglas Spaulding tonight. He's mine if I want him, and I want him. Not forever, but tonight, this sweet lonely night when my music came back to me in his house, sitting on his bed, playing his guitar. Jaynanne can spare me this one night, out of all her happiness. There'll be no pain for anyone, and joy for him and me, and there's nothing wrong with that, I don't care what anyone says.
She got in his car and sat beside him, watching the fog of his breath in the cold air as he started the engine. She never took her eyes off him, seeing how the light changed when the headlights came on inside the garage, how it changed again as he leaned over the back seat, guiding the car in reverse down the driveway. He pressed a button and the garage door closed after them.
No one else was on the road. No one else seemed even to exist -- all the houses were dark and still, and the tires crunching on snow were the only noise besides the engine, besides their breathing.
He tried to cover what was happening with chat. "Good game tonight, wasn't it?"
"Mm-hm," she said.
"Fun," he said. "Crazy bunch of guys. We act like children, I know it."
"I like children," she said.
"In fact, my kids are more mature than I am when I'm with those guys."
She remembered speaking to them tonight, their faces so sleepy. "I woke them, I'm afraid. I was playing your guitar. That's a bad habit of mine, intruding in people's houses. Sort of an invited burglar or something."
"I heard you playing," he said.
"Clear downstairs? I thought I was quieter than that."
"Steel strings," he said. "And the vents are all open in the winter. Sound carries. It was beautiful."
"Thanks."
"It was -- beautiful," he said again, as if he had searched for another word and couldn't think of one. "It was the kind of music I've always longed for in my home, but I've never been good enough on the guitar to play like that myself."
"You keep it in tune."
"If I don't the dog barks."
She laughed, and he smiled in return. She couldn't stop looking at him. The heater was on now, so his breath didn't make a fog. The streetlights brightened his face; then it fell dark again. He's not that handsome. I'd never have looked at him twice if I'd met him in L.A. or New York. He would have been just another accountant there. So many bright lights in the city, how can someone like this ever shine there? But here, in the snow, in this small town, I can see the truth. That this is the true light, the one that all those neon lights and strobes and spots and halogens are trying to imitate but never can.
They pulled up in front of her apartment. He switched off his lights. The dark turned bright again almost immediately, as the snow reflected streetlights and moonlight.
I can't sleep with this man, thought Rainie. I don't deserve him. I made my choice many years ago, and a man like him is forever out of reach. Sleeping with him would be another self-deception, like so many I've indulged in before. He'd still be Jaynanne's husband and Dougie's and Rose's father and I'd still be a stranger, an intruder. If I sleep with him tonight I'd have to leave town tomorrow, not because I care what anybody thinks, not because anybody'd even know, but because I couldn't stand it, to have come so close and still not belong here. This is forbidden fruit. If I ate of it, I'd know too much, I'd see how naked I am in my own life, my old life.
He opened his car door.
"No," she said. "You don't need to help me out."
But he was already walking around the car, opening her door. He gave her a hand getting out. The snow squeaked under their feet.
"Thanks for the ride," she said. "I can get up the stairs OK."
"I know," he said. "I just don't like dropping people off without seeing them safe inside."
"You'd walk Tom to the door?"
"So I'm a sexist reactionary," he said. "I can't help it, I was raised that way. Always see the woman safely to the door."
"There aren't many rapists out on a night like this," said Rainie.
Ignoring her arguments, he followed her up the stairs and waited while she got the key out and unlocked the deadbolt and the knob. She knew that he'd ask to come inside. Knew that he'd try to kiss her. Well, she'd tell him no. Not because Minnie and Grandpa told her to, but because she had her own kind of integrity. Sleeping with him would be a lie she was telling to herself, and she wouldn't do it.
But he didn't try to kiss her. He stepped back as she pushed open the door and gave a little half-wave with his gloved hand and said, "Thanks."