We’ll get along.”
“Sure we will.”
“Now shall we go to sleep?”
“You think you can sleep all right?”
“It’s the first time we ever slept together, Frank.”
“You like it?”
“It’s grand, just grand.”
“Kiss me goodnight.”
“It’s so sweet to be able to kiss you goodnight.”
Next morning, the telephone waked us up.
She answered it, and when she came up her eyes were shining.
“Frank, guess what?”
“What?”
“His skull is fractured.”
“Bad?”
“No, but they’re keeping him there.
They want him there for a week, maybe.
We can sleep together again, tonight.”
“Come here.”
“Not now.
We’ve got to get up.
We’ve got to open the place up.”
“Come here, before I sock you.”
“You nut.”
It was a happy week, all right.
In the afternoon, she would drive in to the hospital, but the rest of the time we were together.
We gave him a break, too.
We kept the place open all the time, and went after the business, and got it.
Of course it helped, that day when a hundred Sunday school kids showed up in three buses, and wanted a bunch of stuff to take out in the woods with them, but even without that we would have made plenty.
The cash register didn’t know anything to tell on us, believe me it didn’t.
Then one day, stead of her going in alone, we both went in, and after she came out of the hospital, we cut for the beach.
They gave her a yellow suit and a red cap, and when she came out I didn’t know her at first.
She looked like a little girl.
It was the first time I ever really saw how young she was.
We played in the sand, and then we went way out and let the swells rock us.
I like my head to the waves, she liked her feet.
We lay there, face to face, and held hands under water.
I looked up at the sky.
It was all you could see.
I thought about God.
“Frank.”
“Yes?”
“He’s coming home tomorrow.
You know what that means?”
“I know.”
“I got to sleep with him, stead of you.”
“You would, except that when he gets here we’re going to be gone.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“Just you and me and the road, Cora.”
“Just you and me and the road.”