She’d figured out how to stop saying good-bye. All she’d had to do was remember about Limbo: neither Heaven nor Hell, Limbo was the timeless, colorless eternity spent in between. The nuns had always tried to make it sound scary, telling her and the other schoolgirls to pray for the lost babies in Limbo awaiting redemption and their release to Heaven, but Cath had been a skeptical kid, and in her head Limbo had always been the most peaceful place. Better than Heaven, with all those mincing angels and their harps.
She and Nev were in Limbo, but they were here together. They had a couple more days before Hell.
“You and me and rain on the roof,” Cath sang quietly.
“What’s that then?”
“It’s the Lovin’ Spoonful. Dad had the tape. He used to play it in the car.”
“Ah.”
She listened to the rain and relaxed against Nev, enjoying the rhythmic rise and fall of his bare chest beneath her cheek.
“This is nice,” she said.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I suppose we’ll have to go downstairs eventually.”
“Eventually,” he agreed, stroking his hand down her side. When she was curled against him, he could easily reach almost to her knees. It made her feel safe, sheltered.
“What’s on the agenda for today?”
He exhaled, eyes on the ceiling. “I’m afraid we can’t escape two days in a row. We’ll have to spend the morning in the parlor with Mother. If we’re lucky, no blood will be spilled.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to let her pull out our fingernails one at a time?”
“We’ll be all right, love. We just need some armor. I always take my sketchbook and affect to be drawing.”
“Oh. Well, I have a book. Is reading acceptable?”
“Only if she approves of the author. Is he English?”
“No, but almost as good. It’s Ishiguro. Remains of the Day.”
“You’ll be perfectly safe.”
He smiled enough to make his dimple show up for a visit, and then he rolled on top of her, wedging a powerful thigh between her legs. “We don’t have to go down there just yet,” he said, his breath warm against her neck.
Cath wrapped a leg around his hip and pulled him closer. He was hers. Nobody else’s but hers. For as long as they stayed in Limbo, he’d be hers, because here, they were outside of time. They were outside of everything. “You have some ideas about what we might do instead?”
“Several.” He began kissing his way down her stomach, his palms sliding to her knees and pressing her legs apart until she was completely exposed to him. “I’ll just show you, shall I?”
It was late morning by the time they made it to the parlor. Winston and Company weren’t around. Cath hadn’t seen them since Friday night, and she wondered who was avoiding whom. Probably Nev was trying to spare her his brother’s contempt. He was sweet like that.
Richard read a book on the couch. Evita sat opposite him, frowning down at a pile of knitting on her lap.
How about that? She and Evita shared a hobby.
Cath took the safe seat beside Richard, while Nev said their good mornings and settled down in the window seat with his sketchbook. The sight of him curled up there in the gray light of the rainy morning made her heart ache. She loved him too much. Much too much. She had to look away and remind herself again about Limbo.
Her eyes returned to Evita, who had a few balls of yarn going and was peering at an elaborate chart as she knit, glancing at the needles only occasionally. The piece was wide enough to be a woman’s sweater, though Ev
ita had only finished five or six inches of the familiar Fair Isle pattern.
“That’s a Starmore, isn’t it?”
Evita looked up quickly, but if Cath had surprised her, she concealed it well. “Yes.”