Matters of Faith by Kristy Kiernan Page B

climbed the stairs he reached back and took my hand to the strains of Bach. We shared space amicably in the bathroom, and, as couples who have been married for a certain amount of time often do, there were enough allowances between us, an extra carefulness in passing the toothpaste, a courteous holding out of a face towel, that the path was being gently cleared for sex. This was the romance in our marriage, and, I believed, in most long-term marriages.
    We laughed softly, talked softly, fell together softly, and then softly drew apart, aware of and pleased that this was one of the good times and our distance had been successfully breached once again. It was an aftermath with a subtly hopeful sheen, a small, quiet bit of promise.
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CAL fell asleep quickly, but I was still awake when I heard the kitchen door open and close. I pulled one of Cal’s buttery soft T-shirts over my head and padded to the window. Marshall, Ada, and Meghan moved in the moonlight like reeds, any difference in their build or sex smoothed out from this height. I could have opened the window, called down to them to find out what they were doing, but I felt too satisfied with my children, magnanimous in my newfound acceptance of them as young adults.
    It startled me to see Marshall walk up the bumper of his car and onto the hood, oddly reminiscent of the way it had startled me to watch him climb the steps to his first day of elementary school. He got his balance on the shape of the hood, then turned around and held out a hand to Ada. She turned her face up to him and raised her arm. I could see that she was laughing, her mouth open in joy as he helped her up on the bumper and then the hood. She clambered onto the roof while Marshall helped Meghan onto the hood.
    They joined Ada on the roof and the three of them lay across it, Marshall in the middle, and gazed up at the stars. My children beneath me, safe in the moonlight, my husband sleeping behind me in our sweetly scented bed, I was all rare, feminine contentment.
    Had I known what the next twenty-four hours would bring, I would have flung open the window and launched myself out of it, arcing toward my children in an attempt to cover their fragile bodies with my own, to keep them safe from all that was new.

MARSHALL
    If she wasn’t talking, Marshall could imagine that Meghan wasn’t there, and he and Ada were alone, looking at the stars. Of course, the times she wasn’t talking were remarkably few and far between. But eventually her small voice faded away as she succumbed to the late hour, and Ada took his hand as they stared up at the sky.
    He rolled toward her, raising up on one elbow so he could look down on her face, the skin across her high cheekbones stretched taut and nearly translucent in the moonlight. The soft rush of the surf on the beach filtered through the trees in the quiet, and a barred owl hooted in the distance.
    He pushed her collar out of the way with one finger, trailed his fingertips across the base of her neck. She breathed evenly under him, gazing past him at the sky, as if she weren’t aware of his presence.
    If he stared hard enough, he thought he could see right through her skin, could see the fine arch of her collarbone, the badge of her sternum. Ada remained still as he pressed his lips to hers and tasted the softness of the inside of her top lip.
    He ran his fingertips against the side of her breast and nearly moaned when she arched slightly under him and drew a quick breath, the air flowing in past his lips between them. He pulled his head back so he could see her eyes as he pressed more firmly against her breast, and as he did he heard the train coming.
    The sound was faint. Ada was likely confusing it with the sound of the surf, and from years of hearing it he knew it wouldn’t get much louder before fading away again, but before it did... and there it was. Her eyes widened as the whistle sounded and her mouth opened slightly.
    â€œIs