She usually fell asleep as soon as she hit the pillow—a sure sign of sleep deprivation, she’d read that in a magazine—so she’d had no idea that Harold lay awake, wide-eyed, every night for hours. He had his arm around her too and he was hugging her to him, which he hadn’t done in years. It was uncomfortable. It was hard to believe that they used to sleep in each other’s arms all night, but that was when they were young, before their muscles got stiff from holding any one position for too long. She was going to be exhausted tomorrow. At last she heard his breathing settle; he was finally asleep. She extricated herself carefully from his embrace—it was like rigor mortis—and turned off his light. Audrey didn’t believe in ghosts, but she was cursed with a lively imagination. She lay listening in the dark, covers pulled up to her chin, wondering bleakly what the future would hold. At last she fell asleep and dreamed about children in ghost costumes (white sheets with holes cut out for eyes) jumping out of Harold’s birthday cake, which had grown to such monumental proportions that she’d had to use a ladder to ice it.
