Michael returned to the car with the dress in Emma’s black suitcase. He made no mention of his selection, and she did not ask. From there, the two resumed the short jaunt over to his place. The sick woman, with luggage in hand, plodded upstairs for a lie-down while the host made a detour by way of the kitchen to search for a bowl for his Halloween candy.

He wondered what Emma’s reaction would be to the wedding gown. His choosing it was too much like a crush note or art offering from his callow and cowardly youth. Was he stupid to believe she would sensibly work out the meaning of it in his absence, and then, once he appeared in the doorway, throw herself into his arms with an empathic yes?

He had thought to grab Jacques’ envelope from the car before coming in, so set it on the kitchen counter while he rummaged through a cabinet. The scrawled note on front of the bulky package smacked of melodrama:

For M. West, The truth about her. –J

With bowl found, he tore open the envelope to confirm his suspicions about the contents. He then turned his attention more productively to retrieving a cruddy bottle of Pepto-Bismol from the refrigerator door. The candy corn was put on the coffee table in passing, whereupon he moved upstairs to face the consequences of his rashness.

Emma was sitting shriveled on his dark bed; the suitcase was still on the floor, unopened. Her voice was feebler. “I think I need help.”

The man sank beneath her pitiful cry to her knees, offering amelioration. “I brought you some Pepto-Bismol.”

The half-closed fingers on one of her hands resembled wilted petals turned up in her lap. They unfurled slowly to reveal a sliver of crumpled paper: It was Amber’s phone number taken from his dashboard. Its juxtaposition to the scar on the same arm could not have been more striking.

This was her symbolism—not his. And for all its starkness, he was bound to perceive it with just as much ambiguity as what he intended in his selection of the wedding dress. What was she trying to say? The phone number of her rival suggested jealousy. But jealousy in women did not necessarily signify anything more than a need to maintain a roster of conquests. Michael looked up into her forlorn face, keenly feeling her gaze. If she wanted him to renounce Amber and pledge undying love to her, wouldn’t she remove all doubt by saying as much? It was perhaps left for him to pluck the note from her possession and allay her anguish by answering her gesture with a wordless kiss. But such bold presumption was not in his nature. He did not know what she wanted him to do. And even if reciprocity was certain on her part, he could not imagine how he should act on it. Critical seconds, like cold blood pumping in his chest, lapsed in his silent, futile deliberation.

Emma finally placed the scrap of paper on the nightstand and the opportunity was lost: lost like so many fateful moments in his life when he knew what to do but could not do it.

Her stained dress was already unzipped, and she began to wiggle out of it without assistance.

Michael eased back as the top of the garment fell away from of her flushed bosom. Touching her now, even in a helpful way, would be different. One lost opportunity had rescinded all other opportunities. Regardless what she said, he could not presume touching her would mean the same thing as it had only seconds earlier. He had lost the momentum, and she had moved on to a different place without him.

Emma rose unsteadily to her feet to push the folds of chiffon down over her beautiful hips; her briefs and bra were the same improbable shade of pink as the Pepto-Bismol bottle at the foot of the bed. With dress pooling at her ankles, she returned to the high bed to stare at him and shiver.

It had all fallen apart—it was all in tatters. He could find nothing in her face but blankness. He ran away from his half-baked plan in the suitcase. “Do you want a sweater?”

She began to droop in the direction of the pillow with an outstretched hand. Her plea was doleful. “Nap with me.”

Michael rose slowly, shaking more than she. He looked down at the line of her long body on the bed. It was half in light and half in shadow—half gangly girl and half sensuous woman.

She took his hand. “Keep me warm.”

The man brought a knee up to stop him toppling, but yielded. He faced her from the other half of a pillow and dipped in and out of her drowsiness. The close proximity and dimness made them roughly equivalent in a kind a horizontal logic, and perhaps this was her thinking. He wanted to believe only a single skin flowed between them, and their life together was already settled. But nothing was settled. He looked down at her smooth, flat stomach—so late to see what others saw, so alone to see what only he could see; and sometimes he could only see things when he was ready to see them. A vein in Emma's palm pulsed down his wrist: a thought for each of his, though none were likely to intersect.

“I have been cruel to you,” she said.

“But no,” he answered.

“You must think me a faithless woman.”

“Of course not.”

“But I have been faithless.”

“Only in losing faith.”

She smiled at his comforting words. “But I want to be a good person, Michael. If I’ve been bad, then it’s because I want to be better. If I’ve been cruel, then it was only to be kind.”

In other words, he thought, she had sought to kindly dissuade his interest by being cruel. She had never explained the ring—had assumed it served its purpose in warding off his heart.

Emma could see him going distant again. “I have sent you no mixed signals. I have tried to be honest with you from the beginning. As honest as anyone can claim to be when everything is changing around them.”

He did not like where she was going with this. So much exposition boded no good. His hand went ice cold in hers.

She sighed. “Can’t you see what I’m getting at?”

He was already gone. A shadow. Past hearing her.

“Michael?”

Still no response.

She tugged harder on his hand. “Can’t you see?”

He spoke in the direction of truth. “I am blind, Emma.”

“Blind…? Blind how?”

He could suddenly see nothing of her below him in the narrow stairwell, but could feel her fingers entwined tighter around his. He did not know how to elaborate.

“When you are at your easel,” she began calmly, “do you see where you’re going?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“But are you lost?”

It felt like she was trying to pitch him forward in the darkness and send him tumbling. He replied, “But it’s different.”

“Different how?”

“It’s less logical.”

“Less logical than this?”

He was knotting up between the close, splintery walls at his elbows, looking down into blackness. “Yes,” he said.

“But equally true?”

“More true.”

“In what way more true?”

She finally coaxed him down an unseen step, closer to what he wanted to say. “Logic cannot impart what is most good,” he answered.

“Then what is most good… most true for you about this?”

The question entered his head sideways. “There is a commitment.”

Emma’s voice was searching, “A commitment…?”

Seizing on a nonverbal cue, Michael pinched the engagement ring around her finger. It moved him down another unseen step.

Thump. Thump. A rap of knuckles arose from the front door downstairs.

He was lagging a second or two behind it, skittishly crossing back over the step. “That might be trick-or-treaters,” he muttered. “I should go down and answer it.” He reached out to feel the sides of the passageway—they were gone.

Emma squeezed his fingers, steadying him before easing him back down the given-up step. Her voice was warmer, womanlier in the dark. “What does the ring mean to you, Michael?”

“Duty,” he said weakly.

“No,” she responded. “Not duty.”

Thump. Thump. The knocking bounded louder up the remaining steps.

He teetered over them, dizzily. “Not duty,” he agreed.

“Yes. Not duty.”

“Not friendship,” he ventured to add.

“Yes,” she agreed.

What was it to her if not friendship?

Thump. Thump. The summons was closer—in the house.
He could see nothing beneath them. Only her hand and perfume were anchors. “I can’t see, Emma.”

“What does the ring mean to you?” she gently pressed.

“Hello up there?” came a booming voice from the bottom of the well.

It was much further down than he supposed; he began to tremble. “I can’t see…”

She was quietly waiting.

Time was again slipping away. Women were looking back at him from across time… from across tables as restaurants… waiting for him to say or do something…

There was a gentle tug.

He could not care enough to put himself in such stressful situations unless he fell in love first. And then he could not act for fear that love would be rejected…

“What is your commitment?” she whispered up to him.

He gripped Emma’s hand harder, not wanting any more grains of sand to escape his grasp while he tried to resolve the contradiction…

“Michael?” she asked.

A logical solution was required: a solution worked out by his head where his heart would not be broken. There had to be…

“Hello…?” The voice rebounded over both of them.

He could see nothing of her—nothing at all. Only her gown swished like beating feathers in his ears. Logic could not save him…

“What does the ring mean to you, Michael?”

The paradox could not be resolved by logic…

She would not pull on him anymore—would not act for him.

His shaking foot at last dropped into the abyss, and with a prayer she would catch him. “That I love you,” he said.

Tears, unbeknownst to him, were streaming down his cheek to the pillowcase. She lifted the back of her hand to dab them, and he could once again see her on the bed. A far-in-coming smile was on her face. “Then it is a commitment—a love—we share,” she whispered.

Michael took hold of her grazing fingers, but his joy was instantly knotting in them.

No scar was on her wrist.

He eased away, murmuring, “This is a dream…”

Her voice wafted sweetly onto his half of the pillow. “No. This part is not a dream...”

“Michael…?” again came the call.

Confused, the man slipped out the tangle of soft limbs to trail off over the edge of the bed. Snagging one of his cardigans from the headboard, he draped it over her shoulder, yet could think of nothing more to say—nothing that needed to be said. He inched backward to bump the suitcase in the floor; a glance revealed the fasteners were unclasped…

She had looked inside it.

Even in the dark, her blue-green eyes pierced him with purpose. “The rest is just details to be worked out," she said.

Michael, slow to release her, turned at last into the light at the doorway.

Omar was staring up from the bottom of the stairs.