Page 65 of Call Off the Dark

“You would.”

She went to him and put her arms around his waist.

He looked down at her bare legs. “Are you going to wear pants when you run these museums?”

“During visiting hours, yes. After hours, when all the exhibits come to life and you come in to see me, no pants.”

Tyler lifted Helen and set her on the counter. “What kind of things will you do to me after hours?”

She whispered to him the things she’d do.

Then she unzipped his pants and showed him.

That summer, Helen started a class at the University of Washington in comparative colonialism. It was an evening class on Mondays and Wednesdays, and she had purchased a parking pass, but Tyler insisted on driving her that very first night.

As the car idled in the drop-off area by Red Square, he said, “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“I’ll be so much smarter by eight.”

“Even smarter?” Tyler said. “God, save me.”

Helen leaned across the front seat and hugged him.

“Thank you,” she said softly. She wasn’t just talking about the ride.

Helen learned more about enduring love in that year than she did in the years that preceded or followed it. Just when she thought she’d ruined her marriage, she breathed a little life into it and watched it come back alive, brighter than before.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Present day

It was a night without coyotes or owls. Soundless almost. Helen slept in fits and bursts, but she never left her bed to wander, because there was a mysterious man down the hall.

At five o’clock in the morning, she got up to use the bathroom.

En route, she paused in the hallway outside the guest bedroom. It was terribly intrusive—she knew that—but the evening events had felt so surreal, she almost wondered if it hadn’t all been a fever dream. She carefully cracked the door and peeked inside. The blankets on Isaac’s bed were messed up, and he’d slept with the dusty pink and yellow quilt. The fresh blanket she’d given him sat neatly folded on the desk.

Isaac was not in the bed though.

Helen shut the door so delicately that the click of it was almost silent. Then she heard the crackle of the fire and saw the faint glow of light spilling into the hallway.

In the living room, she found Isaac sitting in her reading chair in front of the fireplace with her Edgar Allan Poe book open in his lap. It appeared he truly did like poetry after all. Then she noticed which poem he was reading: “A Dream Within a Dream.” Strange, she thought. Those were the same lines she’d repeated in her head last night to calm herself. I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. She hugged her arms to her chest, feeling exposed in her wispy nightgown, wondering if he could see the outline of her breasts in the shimmering firelight.

He nodded at the fire. “Hope you don’t mind. I can chop you more wood today.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Why are you awake?”

“It happens a lot. I’m never going to win any sleep awards. Whereas Wade can sleep through anything. Even when he’s upset.”

“Is he upset?”

“No, he’s fine.”