“You weren’t. You were alone.”
“But I’m used to it.”
The faucet had a drip. For a while, those ka-plunks, coming at fifteen-second intervals, were the only sound in the room. In the world.
Then she said, “That’s the one thing we didn’t talk about.”
He twisted the taps to see if he could stop the drip. “Sorry?”
“This morning I asked you how you could bear the silence, the boredom, and the loneliness. We talked about the other two, but not the loneliness.”
The faucet stopped dripping, but he kept a tight grip on both taps as though he would pull them out of their moorings.
“Don’t you get lonely?”
Was it his imag
ination or had her voice dropped in volume and pitch? “Sometimes.”
“What do you do about it?”
No, it wasn’t his imagination. Her voice vibrated with an intimate undertone. It was gruff, as though she had drunk the whiskey after all, and it had seared her throat. He pried his hands from the water taps and slowly turned around. She’d come only as close as the dining table, where she stood as though poised for a signal from him of what she should do next.
“I don’t think you’re referring to loneliness in general, are you, Doc?”
She made a rolling motion with her shoulders that could have meant anything.
“Are you asking if I get lonely for a woman?”
“Do you?”
“Often.”
“What do you do?”
“I go get one.”
His blunt answer had the effect he’d meant it to. It shocked the hell out of her.
“Like you got me?”
“No. You were different. You were a lucky find.”
She hovered there indecisively for easily half a minute, her eyes darting to this and that but staying off him. He could tell the instant she decided to soldier on, because her eyes stopped that restless search for…what? Courage, maybe. Anyway, they returned to him.
She asked, “Did you mean it?”
“What?”
“When you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Yes.”
She waited, as though expecting him to recant, then said, “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”
“You’ve already thanked me.”
“Yes, but those other times don’t count.”