If I Forget You by Thomas Christopher Greene

Author:Thomas Christopher Greene
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466884656
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Henry, 1991

The night is unseemly hot and Henry sleeps with the cabin door open. Because of the heat, he sleeps unevenly, and when he does sleep, the dreams come in waves—there is Margot underneath him and he is moving above her and then suddenly she is there but not there, her face as blank as a sheet of paper. She has no eyes and no nose and no mouth. He wakes at one point in a sweat and beyond the open door the land leading down to the lake is blue with moonlight.

He drifts in and out of sleep, and when the first yellow of dawn comes, he wakes with a start, as if from a sound, and now looking out, he sees the land is full of heavy mist, as it often is this close to the lake. Henry knows that if he was to walk outside, his world would shrink to the several feet in front of him. And then, thinking this and looking out, Henry suddenly sees someone, an outline in the low-hanging fog that begins to take shape, and he feels all his muscles tense intuitively, and a moment later, it is as if he is still dreaming, for there is Margot, leaning against the doorframe, looking toward where he lies on the bed.

“Knock, knock,” she says.

“Holy shit, you scared me,” Henry says.

“Get over here,” Margot says.

Henry climbs out of bed and goes to her. Margot steps inside the doorway and in the dark he takes her into his arms and she says, “I love the smell of you.”

“Sweaty,” he whispers, and she laughs.

Henry pulls her to him tight and buries his face in her hair, and then he pulls back and holds her face in his hands and they kiss. For a long while they are silent, holding each other, and it is a game of chicken they are playing, neither of them wanting to pull away, and Henry finally breaks the silence by saying, “I can’t believe it’s you. That you’re here.”

“I needed you,” Margot says.

After a time they go to the bed, and when they make love, it is with a deep urgency and Henry reminds himself to be slow, but this morning he cannot and afterward, Margot is crying and he thinks he has done something wrong, but she whispers that she is just so happy to be with him and he knows what she means, that love like this is far closer to insanity than it is to reality, the world around them spinning uncontrollably, and their ability to be together is the only thing holding them on the planet. We are gravity, he thinks as he uses his thumb to wipe the tears away from her eyes.

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