Maureen disengaged and rolled off the bed. 'Why don't we talk about that after breakfast?' she said, and left for the back yard, to do her morning yoga, parting from Cynthia with a shower of kisses and caresses. Cynthia lay back and stretched, relishing the delicious tingling of her muscles as she prepared to get out of bed. And as she sat up, the first thought to come to her mind was Aaron. He appeared to her the way dead people appear to the living in dreams, with frightening intensity and sharpness, but disconnected from any relationship with immediate external reality. She could see him in her mind, but could not feel him with her body, all sense-memory of him having temporarily vanished. He was a presence she could not avoid, but neither could she relate to him. She wondered what he was doing and whether she should try to reach him. There was nothing special she needed to say at that moment; her reaching out was for reassurance. Without judging her action she picked up the phone and called his school.
