Page 58 of Hunger

"Very good, sir. May I wish you well on the journey?"

I don't know what to say. Whitfield's family has handled my account for two centuries and the relationship has always been transactional. The wishing well is something else. The wishing well is a thing being given without expectation of return.

"Yes," I say finally. "Thank you, Whitfield. I'll be in touch from Budapest."

"As always, sir."

I hang up.

The sheet music has been on my kitchen table since Friday afternoon when the courier left it on the front step. I haven't given it to her, because she didn't need me to. The piece has been in her body for years. The page wasn't what she needed. The remembering was what she needed.

She played the Meditation from Thaïs from memory yesterday afternoon. She found her way back to it without me.

Now I can give her the page.

I cross to the table. I lift the envelope. Massenet. Meditation from Thaïs. Violin and Piano. The cover is plain. The paper is good.

I take it back out to the van.

I drive back to her apartment.

The lot is quiet. Lisa's car is here now — she has come home — but her window is dark. Jenny's is dark too. The whole building is sleeping.

I climb.

I work the latch one more time and step into her room, and close the window behind me.

She's on her side, curled toward the place where I lay beside her earlier. Her hair is loose on the pillow. Her hand is splayed across the warm depression in the sheet where my body had been.

She's asleep.

I cross to the desk. I lay the envelope on the surface where she'll see it. I square it gently against the edge.

I look at her, and I force myself to leave.

The sun is rising when I let myself in to the farmhouse. The day is coming. This day is going to be the longest day I've lived in a millennium because at the end of it she'll walk out of her front door for the last time and I'll be waiting.

I cross to the room with no windows. I sit on the floor with my back against the wall. I close my eyes.

The day passes over me.

* * *

Jenny

I wake Monday morning to the tick of the heat kicking on through the vent.

The room is gray with the light of an overcast day. The bed beside me is empty. The impression of his body is gone from the sheet — the cool shape that was there yesterday morning hasfaded, replaced with the natural warmth of my own body where I have rolled into the place where he was. My hand is curled in the blanket the way it was when he left me last night.

I lie in bed for a while looking at the ceiling.

I should be sad. I should feel something like loss. He was here yesterday afternoon for hours and now he's gone and I should feel his absence keenly — a thing whose use I'd only just learned, and now taken away.

I don't feel sad.

I feel something I can't name. A small steady warmth in my chest that's been there since I opened my eyes. The shape oftomorrow night.The shape ofI'm taking you with me.The shape of theyesI said into his chest in the dim light yesterday evening.

I'm leaving.