Page 28 of Lady Sings the Blues

“That’s good to know, darlin’. But I can’t bed you in the same bed I’ve had piece. This room was single me gettin’ off when you were still gone in Chicago.”

“But you’ve already had me.”

“In my bed, in my home.”

I don’t understand what he’s saying. He must sense it. “Baby girl, you’re the only woman ever shared that bed.”

My eyes, they close while I try to tamp down the ache of need still pulsating through my expanding universe, but the more I replay those words the easier it becomes to extinguish that ache. Or at least to dull and push it into the background as some other sensation, something I’m not ready to fully name pulses to the foreground.

But I certainly can admit. “You really do care for me.”

“Been tellin’ you this whole time.”

“I thought it was just something you said…I didn’t…Then take me to your home, Mark.”

“No. I can’t take you to my home. It ain’t mine anymore, darlin’. It’s ours. I’ll take you to our home. But you gotta say it first. Out loud, as a promise. I take you there, you never leavin’ me. We’re Elise and…”

“Mark,” I finish for him.

“Right. We’re Elise and Mark.”

Though I can’t make that promise, because Elise is still heading home to Chicago after the funeral.

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