Bill nods to show that he knows exactly what she means, even though she’s right, she can’t do the accent. Anyway, they arrested him, she tells him. The boyfriend.
         Now Bill feels his body tense in one long contraction of longing to hear where this is going, because amazingly their positions have reversed and he is the one involved in her life, he is in the nurses’ housing, he is stumbling into the room where there is a bloodied body on the floor; it is his voice on the phone to the police, There’s been a murder. The longing builds into a wave. If he lets it go, it will smash him. He has seen how a wave can smash the human form right below his own house, down on the beach where it is dangerous to swim outside the flags. It is dangerous but people do it all the time and make it necessary for other people risk their lives for them, all the time. He sees the wave coming. The wave is silent. It is vital he doesn’t let it break. He is back in the Apollo 8, leaving the wave behind.
         And then what?
         That’s it. That’s the story.
         That’s it? That’s what you call a story?
         Well excuse me, she says. I’m a nurse, not a fucking writer. Oh God. Are you going to report me for that?

9

  

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