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-CLARE: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is,
wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays.
I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I’m tired. I watch
the wind play with the trash that’s been under the snow all winter. Everything seems
simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?

-He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a
year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each
moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I
cannot follow? 
I was melted by Clare's gentle, soothing, composed tone tinged with sunshine and tears .
-All I ask for are humble delights. A mystery novel in bed,
the smell of Clare’s long red-gold hair damp from washing, a postcard from a friend
on vacation, cream dispersing into coffee, the softness of the skin under Clare’s
breasts, the symmetry of grocery bags sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be
unpacked. I love meandering through the stacks at the library after the patrons have
gone home, lightly touching the spines of the books. These are the things that can
pierce me with longing when I am displaced from them by Time’s whim. 

-And Clare, always Clare. Clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. Clare
with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it
so, and so, to meld the fibers. Clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of
the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. Clare’s low voice is
in my ear often.

- Outside it’s chilly. Cars and cyclists cruise along Dearborn while couples stroll
down the sidewalks and there we are with them, in the morning sunlight, hand in
hand, finally together for anyone to see. I feel a tiny pang of regret, as though I’ve lost
a secret, and then a rush of exaltation: now everything begins.

-Mom sat down next to me and tried to help me with it. Pretty soon Mom was singing and I was
chiming in with horrible yowling noises and snapping my fingers and we were
giggling and she was tickling me. Dad came out of the bathroom with a towel around
his waist and joined in and for a few glorious minutes they were singing together and
Dad picked me up and they were dancing around the bedroom with me pressed
between them. Then the phone rang, and the scene dissolved.