35

They did not make love. Tom was content to hold her, to feel the petal skin of her shoulders, the curve of her skull beneath his hands. He could have sung like Del, in his friend's last moments, of the perfection of such things. Radiant moonlight, warm sand along his side, Rose's quiet breathing swinging him toward sleep.

In eternity they were married.

'Rose?' he muttered, and she made an interrogatory mmm? 'He told me a story - he told a story he said was about you.'

'Shhh,' she breathed, and put her fingers on his mouth, and he swung all the way into oblivion.