“They remained in bed through the evening and it was as good as it had ever been if not better. Uninhibited sounds of pleasure erupted time and again, shattering the museumlike stillness like fine holiday china removed from a dustblown cupboard and smashed one plate at a time. The articulation of unfeigned desire issued from each of them, resounding through the house, and each of them heard it. It was louder than the silence of neglect that had clamored so loudly in the past, when the disaffection borne of life’s distractions would have had them believe there could be something more important than what they’d found in each other. But now, all they’d been through together had honed their ability to see and hear and feel what they’d had all along, and nearly lost. They knew the world around them would jabber on, deafeningly at times, but they would face it together, knowing what they knew, and shout it down. Between the two of them they had more than enough sound and color and light to fill all the time and space and need they could ever expect to possess. The key to their happiness consisted only in knowing it.”

“The more he thought about his mother, the more he could see that while they were on different roads, they were each just plain lost. In their life together as a family, maybe for the last ten years, maybe longer, they’d all been living in a kind of perpetual twilight. Not light. Not dark. Not anything. And then when his dad disappeared, the lights went out, and Silas and his mom had been wandering around in the dark looking for a switch. Could he blame her because she hadn’t found one either? Each of them had been looking for a way out of their own black midnights, and each of them still had a long way to go until they found some kind of dawn.”

“And so, a never-ending, rather edgy conversation between them, an undercurrent of roiling sound that reminded them they were married, they had two sons, they were living a life, they had preparations to make and disasters to avert and a world to interpret, sign by sign, symbol by symbol, to each other, and that at this point the only fate worse than staying together would be trying, each of them, to live alone.”

“Of course, they hadn’t really been happier at all. But they ‘d been days, and they’d had Sarah in them, and that was near enough.”

“Conor wasn’t stupid. When they’d had the “little talk” the next day, he knew what his mum had done and why she had done it. But that didn’t take away from how much fun that night had been. How hard they’d laughed. How anything had seemed possible. How anything good could have happened to them right then and there and they wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“I mean, it was hard on them. They were turning their backs on everything they’d ever known, because they’d decided there was something that mattered more than doing what they’d been taught to do. Hell, what they’d been raised to do. This wasn’t a choice they made on a whim. This was everything to them.”