she gazed back at him with the same intention. She would not look away. He would not look away. They were children playing a game of wills and then they were hostile enemies. She felt enraged by him and then mad with love. Their eyes did this, said this, shifting from one thing to the next like a baton being passed off.
He crouched over her, leaning into the tub and then bent to press his tongue against the stitches on her breast. Pain shot all the way back to her collarbone and then down through the channels of her body, going everywhere, growing enormous, filling her entirely, and also staying small, as if her whole being were centered on Bruce’s mouth. His tongue was a knife or a flame that opened her up.
She pulled him into the tub on top of her and wrapped her legs around him, moaning low and soft into his chest, and then she shifted and he was inside of her and she rocked against him. Her head knocked rhythmically against the rim of the tub and then she pushed herself up onto her elbows and they fucked that way until Bruce’s knees couldn’t take it anymore and they laughed and climbed out of the tub and tumbled onto the rug, where they fucked some more. Hard and soft and slow and fast. Not like she had cancer. Not in any way differently than they had fucked each other for the past twelve years. Joy filled them, then ecstacy. Out in the living room the dogs lifted their heads. Upstairs Claire and Joshua woke momentarily to roll and shift before falling back to sleep in their beds. Shadow jumped up onto the back of the couch and gazed out the window at the deer who came to the salt lick each night, and then she turned abruptly and listened intently as the cuckoo clock sounded five times.
Teresa and Bruce were asleep by then, their bodies intertwined on the bathroom rug, their eyes closed against the light overhead that they’d both been too tired to reach up and switch off. So bright it was, and yet they hardly seemed to notice it, the way it beat down on them without mercy.
6
W HAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD for me? What are my career interests? What do I look for in a spouse? Will I have children? How will I balance the demands of career and family?
Joshua sat staring at the questions on the blackboard and let Lisa Boudreaux—his so-called wife—do the work. She wrote the questions in her notebook and then took Joshua’s notebook and wrote them in his. Now they were supposed to discuss these questions, desk-to-desk, like all the other “married” couples around the room, making compromises like real couples did.
“What if one wants to be a farmer and the other a Broadway star?” Mr. Bradley had asked them, smiling, pretending to be confounded. “What if one hates snow and the other is a dog musher? What if Cindy likes to party and Jimmy wants to bake bread?” He paced, then stopped suddenly and looked at them with the expectant air of a TV talk show host. His own wife—his actual wife—was a teacher at the school too, in math. He set his stick of chalk down dramatically on the metal rim that ran the length of the board and then turned back to face them. “Welcome, ladies and gents, to ‘Life and Love and Work.’ ”
Joshua stared at his forearm. It was covered with an intricate blue pen drawing he’d made of a spider web. They’d just completed the unit called “Life and Personal Values.” When they were done with “Life and Love and Work,” they’d move on to “Life and Money,” a sort of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel project, in which they’d each be given an imaginary five thousand dollars to invest in the stock market. The class itself was simply called “Life.” Everyone had to take it in the last semester of their senior year in order to graduate from Midden High School, even the kids in special ed.
“What do you want to be?” asked Lisa, once they’d arranged theirdesks. Her pen had a pink feathery furry thing at the end of it, and she swished it contemplatively along her
He crouched over her, leaning into the tub and then bent to press his tongue against the stitches on her breast. Pain shot all the way back to her collarbone and then down through the channels of her body, going everywhere, growing enormous, filling her entirely, and also staying small, as if her whole being were centered on Bruce’s mouth. His tongue was a knife or a flame that opened her up.
She pulled him into the tub on top of her and wrapped her legs around him, moaning low and soft into his chest, and then she shifted and he was inside of her and she rocked against him. Her head knocked rhythmically against the rim of the tub and then she pushed herself up onto her elbows and they fucked that way until Bruce’s knees couldn’t take it anymore and they laughed and climbed out of the tub and tumbled onto the rug, where they fucked some more. Hard and soft and slow and fast. Not like she had cancer. Not in any way differently than they had fucked each other for the past twelve years. Joy filled them, then ecstacy. Out in the living room the dogs lifted their heads. Upstairs Claire and Joshua woke momentarily to roll and shift before falling back to sleep in their beds. Shadow jumped up onto the back of the couch and gazed out the window at the deer who came to the salt lick each night, and then she turned abruptly and listened intently as the cuckoo clock sounded five times.
Teresa and Bruce were asleep by then, their bodies intertwined on the bathroom rug, their eyes closed against the light overhead that they’d both been too tired to reach up and switch off. So bright it was, and yet they hardly seemed to notice it, the way it beat down on them without mercy.
6
W HAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD for me? What are my career interests? What do I look for in a spouse? Will I have children? How will I balance the demands of career and family?
Joshua sat staring at the questions on the blackboard and let Lisa Boudreaux—his so-called wife—do the work. She wrote the questions in her notebook and then took Joshua’s notebook and wrote them in his. Now they were supposed to discuss these questions, desk-to-desk, like all the other “married” couples around the room, making compromises like real couples did.
“What if one wants to be a farmer and the other a Broadway star?” Mr. Bradley had asked them, smiling, pretending to be confounded. “What if one hates snow and the other is a dog musher? What if Cindy likes to party and Jimmy wants to bake bread?” He paced, then stopped suddenly and looked at them with the expectant air of a TV talk show host. His own wife—his actual wife—was a teacher at the school too, in math. He set his stick of chalk down dramatically on the metal rim that ran the length of the board and then turned back to face them. “Welcome, ladies and gents, to ‘Life and Love and Work.’ ”
Joshua stared at his forearm. It was covered with an intricate blue pen drawing he’d made of a spider web. They’d just completed the unit called “Life and Personal Values.” When they were done with “Life and Love and Work,” they’d move on to “Life and Money,” a sort of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel project, in which they’d each be given an imaginary five thousand dollars to invest in the stock market. The class itself was simply called “Life.” Everyone had to take it in the last semester of their senior year in order to graduate from Midden High School, even the kids in special ed.
“What do you want to be?” asked Lisa, once they’d arranged theirdesks. Her pen had a pink feathery furry thing at the end of it, and she swished it contemplatively along her
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