“under the radiant towers, the floodlit ramparts, must have wondered at my impulse to touch her, which was like touching myself,the way your own hand feels when you hold it because you want to feel contained.”

“This is my heart. You are touching it with your left hand. You are touching it with your left hand, not because you are left-handed, although you might be, but because I am holding it against my heart. What you are feeling is the beating of my heart. It is what keeps me alive.”

“I watched you wake up and try to wake me up too. I could still feel you touch my face and my cheek. I liked the way you brushed my hair back with your hand. I liked the way held onto my hands with your hands. They must have felt a little cold and a little wet but they started to feel warm again when you held onto them. I want you to know that I stayed there with you and held onto you too.”

“I do miss being pregnant. I find sometimes that I'm surprised by the difference between her body and my own -- that when I reach for her hand, I can't feel my touch with her fingers. This often happens when I walk with her in the sling, which must be as close as we can get to the womb. I'll touch her little leg or head and be surprised by the feeling of otherness. Her body is her own now.”

“I have waited for this, Beth, this moment,” he whispered as he took her hands in his and brought her fingertips to his mouth, kissing each fingertip before placing her palms on either side of his face. “When Sussex, Black and I returned from the East, I watched you as you did this—touched Sussex, then Black. And I waited, holding my breath, barely able to control my feelings, waiting to feel your touch on my face. But you did not. You made a polite enquiry after my health and left me standing alone by the hearth. And, then, the other afternoon with Sheldon, you touched him, and I was alone, and apart again. Remembering what it was like to await your touch, and then never to feel it. Beth,” he whispered as he moved closer to her, “won’t you touch me? See me?”

“Blake took her face in his hands. “You let me touch you. Kiss you. Your skin? It feels like piano keys. My hands know just where to go.”