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Lydia had realized she was walking on a thin and invisible film of black ice: flat, frictionless, as slick as oiled glass.

“Bruno,” she whispered. “Please hold on to me. Hold on tight.”

I clung to her neck. My arms were still weak.

Lydia kneeled to the ground. She placed her fingers on the pavement for support, and slowly slid her feet out of her shoes.

“Please hold these,” she said, and she put her shoes in the cradle of space created by my body and hers. I sucked in the humid lush smell of the insides of her shoes. I drank in the savory odor of the cushioning pads soaked in Lydia’s sweat. The insteps had a little blood in them, from two twin blisters that had burst at the backs of her heels. The air coming into my nose and mouth from the insides of her shoes was a small puff of warmth in the harrowing cold.

We had to walk another thirty feet or so to her car. Lydia sank all her gravity into one foot at a time, balancing me in her arms—walking so slowly, so carefully—not taking any risks. Heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe, each step flat on the freezing asphalt.

Lydia winced with each step. I’m sure the ice against the soles of her feet through the flimsy nylon pantyhose was so cold that it spun the wheel of pain around a full revolution, such that it did not freeze, but burned: a pain so sharp that it was more like fire than ice against the skin. I am sure the pain of the cold parking lot shot through her legs as if something were drilling holes in her bones and siphoning out the marrow through a straw.

That night, on our way home, Lydia made a stop somewhere and bought us a bottle of bourbon. That night, we took it home, and Lydia built a fire in the fireplace to warm her freezing feet by, and we got incredibly drunk together until we felt safe and warm and healthy and even sane. That night, Lydia and I made drunken love with the thrashing desperation of two people drowning, clinging to each other for help but in so doing only expediting their sinking, falling together under the surface of the sea.

Part Three

Sated at length, ere long I might perceive

Strange alteration in me, to degree

Of reason in my inward powers, and speech

Wanted not long, though to this shape retained.

Thenceforth to speculations high or deep

I turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind

Considered all things visible in Heaven,

Or Earth, or Middle, all things fair and good.

—Satan, to Eve, Paradise Lost

XXI

Lydia and I did not return to the lab after that. Lydia was depressed. The stress, the disappointment, the nausea—whatever it was, it caused the headaches to come roaring into her skull every single night for weeks. Not only at night, but during the day, as well. I had never seen her so miserably incapacitated by her headaches. She did not even permit me to watch TV, because she said the device’s persistent high-pitched electronic whine—and the nattering of the things and people that appeared on the screen—aggravated her headaches. She lay diagonally across the bed all day, in her pajamas, with the blinds drawn, clutching her temples and moaning. She was therefore, during this period, no fun. So for entertainment I had to content myself with paging through my picture books, or else busying myself with my artistic pursuits. Outside our home the winter still ruled the sky and streets and air; we were in a particularly nasty cold snap; thus I was stuck inside. It was a time of silence and darkness in 5120 South Ellis Avenue, Apartment 1A.

When she wasn’t collapsed sideways across the bed or the couch, or slumped in a chair with an ice pack pressed to her temple in an attempt to chill the fire that raged in her brain and sometimes drove her to the point of vomiting, Lydia was often on the phone, conducting mysterious communiqués with unknown parties. Respectfully, I did not demand to know about them. I gave her privacy, space, and distance enough. I trusted her. I assumed she was conducting