He had taken to sleeping on the floor. She was still recuperating on the sofa. It was a mystery to him how she could claim it as comfortable, but as he had spent his own gunshot convalescence in and out of consciousness in a narrow bed down at County and found respite in the family Bible he wasn't one to question. Ava was not him. And there was huge comfort in that realization. Ava was all about the flesh, about the here and the now, about the blood and the bone. She made him real. She made him feel alive. So, he was on the parlor room floor beside the sofa, in blankets and a pillow from their bed. Awake for his watch, listening to her breathe, ragged shallow pain-filled breaths. It injured him. But he had made his peace with that. Dickie would pay but right now Ava needed him.
"Boyd?" she whispered into the dimly lit room, the light in the kitchen casting out-of-focus shadows across the floor.
He was up instantly. Bending over her, wincing as she winced, hands shaking, reaching out to steady her, help her over onto her side, brush her hair out of her face. "I'm here. Ava. I am right here."
"Mmmm…I know you are. I know you are." She smiled up at him and he reached over and thumbed on the lamp beside her head.
"What do you need?"
"Nothing. Just can't sleep."
He sat down on the floor, her hand at the back of his neck. He rubbed his knuckles across his eyelids, thinking back to his own sleepless nights. "I had flashbacks. They told me at the hospital that it was that "post-traumatic stress". Remembering every moment, the seconds stretching out to veritable minutes. I convinced myself I could see the bullet heading towards me, the trajectory, feel it tearing through me."
"That's something terrible," she said slowly, frowning. "I don't want to remember any of that. I push it away when it comes at me, you know?"
"Good, that's good. Let me do something for you. A glass of warm milk? Do you need to use the facilities?"
"No, no, nothing like that."
"What then?"
"Read to me?"
His heart sank, not that book. Anything but the word of God right now. His voice was hesitant but resigned. "Alright. What would you like me to read?"
She bit her lip and the colour in her face changed slightly. "There's a book I was reading before, you know, this, up in the bedroom."
"I'll be right back then."
He returned, his step lighter, smiling slightly, bemused. "This it?" He held up the thick paperback, turning it so she could see the lurid cover.
"Mmmm-hmmm." She bit her lower lip slightly and he felt his heart rise up towards her. This girlish twist in the woman's face.
Hunkering back down on the floor, beside her, pulling one of the blankets up over his knees, he laughed low. "I cannot believe I'm going to do this."
"Boyd."
"But I am going to do it. For you, Ava."
She smiled and he turned and leaned towards her, kissing her gently. Sitting back, her fingers again at the nape of his neck, he turned the cheap bodice ripper over in his hands, her bookmark was the receipt from the used bookstore downtown. He opened it and began to read to her.