The Warm Window

Keir cleaned his house until it no longer looked like his house, then put three things back where they had been.

The blue cup returned to the windowsill. The narrow lamp went back on the floor beside his chair. The bent spoon stayed on the table because he liked it and was forty-one years old and apparently needed to remind himself that a woman might survive evidence of his preferences.

Blythe arrived carrying pears.

“I considered mustard,” she said.

He kissed her before taking the parcel. She laughed against his mouth and held the pears out of danger.

“You will bruise them.”

“I am making a difficult choice.”

“Put them down first.”

He did. Then he kissed her properly, with the door closed and no evening audience walking past. She came nearer without hesitation, her cold hands settling at the back of his neck. He had imagined this enough times…