“But,” I said, “this is a good memory.”

“Yes.”

“Yet it hurts.”

“Yes.”

I was confused. I didn’t understand how a memory so loving could pain her. I had believed both of Sid’s parents to be alive. “Did she die?”

“No. But things are different between us now.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I was easier to love then.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s hard to remember something you no longer have,” Sid said. “My mother caught me with a girl when I was seventeen. She cried.”

“Why? Is it against your country’s law to be with a woman?”

“No.”

“But she doesn’t like it.”

“It’s not that, exactly…” Sid paused, considering, and when she spoke I saw that it was only because she had been thinking about this for years that she was able to speak clearly. “She has friends like me. I don’t think she would care about me liking women if it didn’t interfere with her plans. She cried because she was going to force her plans on me anyway, and she was sad for what it would do to me, and guilty for herself.”

“What about your father?”

“I think he hopes the problem will solve itself.” She got quiet. “I don’t want to be a problem.”

I stroked her hair. “You’re not.”

“I don’t want to marry.”

“You won’t.”

“He’s as bad as she is. Just more passive.”

“I don’t understand why it’s so important to them that you marry.”

She shrugged. “It’s expected. They want grandchildren. They want me to marry their friends’ son. That family will be angry if I say no.”

“They would rather lose you than lose their friends?”

“Let’s just say they hope to get everything they want.”

“But they risk losing everything.”

“I guess they must be comfortable with that possibility.”

My anger, which had been steadily growing, came out in a rush. “I hate them.”

Sid looked up at me.

“They’re selfish,” I said.

“They want what they believe is best for me.”

“But it isn’t.”

“No,” she said softly, “it isn’t.”

I shook my head. “What about that girl?”

Sid sat up. She ran a hand through her hair, trying to get it to settle. She stood, walked to the window, and opened it. The salty harbor air drifted in. The rising sun burned through the dawn. The sky was a thin blue, with a sheen like hammered metal. “She grew up,” Sid said. “Last I heard, she was engaged to a man.”

“Does that bother you?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like it was true love written in the stars.”

“She probably wishes she still had you.”

“Well”—she smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it—“who wouldn’t?”

“I would.”

Slowly, she said, “Is that what you want?”

“What do you mean?”

“To think about me while you’re in that young man’s bed.”

I stared.

“People want all sorts of things,” she said. “It’s not the strangest desire to want to be with one person but imagine another.”

I left the bed and came to her. “I don’t want to be with him.”

“No?”

“No. I don’t love him. I just said I did. He expected it, and I worried what he might do if he didn’t get it.”

She leaned one shoulder against the wall, looking down at me, her brow furrowed, her hands stuffed in her pockets.

I said, “I want you.”

Her expression changed. It deepened with decision. Her mouth slipped into a slight smile that looked almost self-mocking. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Nirrim, I can’t be good to you.”

“Then be bad.”

Her hands still in her pockets, she leaned to brush her face against my neck. She kissed my throat. The heat of her mouth was everywhere except on my mouth, her body nudging me up against the wall. Her tongue found my quick pulse. “Touch me,” I whispered.

“Not yet.”

Her mouth seared through my thin silk dress, her tongue dampening it. I felt her gentle teeth.

“Kiss me,” I said.

“Not yet.”

I touched her cheek. She turned to glide her mouth over my fingers. “Please,” I said, and pulled her toward me, my mouth hungry for hers. I kissed her. Her lips opened beneath mine. She made a low sound in her throat, and then her hands were on me, finding the shape of my body, its delicate spots, its needy ones. She unbuttoned the top crystal button of my dress, and moved slowly to the next one. Impatient, I began to undo them myself. She stopped my hands. “Let me,” she said. Her tongue lightly touched my lower lip, and I knew I would let her do anything.

She undid all the buttons, her fingers dipping lightly beneath the silk to touch my skin, until the dress fell from my shoulders and slid to the floor.

“I’m not sure,” I said, and her hands stilled. She pulled slightly away, her eyes hesitant, and I saw that she misunderstood. I said, “I’m not sure how.”

She smiled. “I am.”

She knelt before me, her lips and tongue on my belly. “Please don’t stop,” I said.

Her mouth went lower.

My hands twisted in her hair.

45

I LOVE THIS BED, I thought when I woke.

I loved how narrow it was, how close the scanty space made me to Sid, who slept on, her limbs tangled with mine, mouth relaxed and full, her lashes startlingly black, skin damp in the heat.

I loved the pillow, how it dented beneath her head, her blond hair messy against the cotton.

I loved the sheet that had slipped from her bare shoulder.

I loved the burning day, how soon it would pour honey over everything, the light getting golden before it dimmed.

When I shifted, Sid tugged me close. “Stay,” she muttered, and kept sleeping.

I loved that my mouth still tasted like her.

There was so much that was mine in that moment. I counted everything I had, at least then, and all that I was allowed to love.