Erik:

The potager garden was a different place by night than it was by day; a dream-like world shaded in silvery grays and subtle gradations of blue. Of course, walking through it was much different than observing it through my window. I had thought the walkways were made of slate, and instead, they turned out to be gravel, which crunched underfoot. I could hear the faint rustlings and whirrings made by animals and insects going about their business.

I surprised a rabbit among the lettuces; it bounded out of the potager and into the little orchard. A barn owl immediately swept out of a fruit tree, like a pale night flower unfolding, and seized it. The rabbit gave one sharp, short cry as its spine broke. I felt a stab of pity for the rabbit even as the sheer grace and beauty of the owl made my heart thrill in admiration.

I was glad that I shut Ayesha in my room at night, for although she hated it, I could bear her yowls far better than I could bear her disappearance. She had lived almost all of her life under an Opera house; she was unprepared and unaware of the dangers that lay in wait for her, out here. To that owl, she would be no more than another meal.

I left the garden paths behind and stepped out onto the hard-packed earth of the kitchen house's yard. What did I hope to accomplish by this little adventure? I certainly wasn't going to wrest any facts out of anyone. I just wanted to watch them together—to listen to them, when they were alone, to find out how she behaved toward him when no one was looking. I would glean no facts, but I might harvest a great deal of truth.

The wisdom of this course of action was highly dubious. Why had I thought I was up to this? I had been made shaky-legged by the simple walk from the cottage to the foot of this tree. I told myself that the faint trembling of my limbs was due to the lingering symptoms of my withdrawal, and not to any real bodily inanition. I was suffering from lack of exercise, and climbing this tree could only do me good. As I reached for the handiest tree branch, I could not deny that I was not feeling my best.

Something inside me told me to stop; this was wrong on so many levels. I didn't listen to it.

I pulled myself up, limb by painful limb, from branch to branch, up the tree. Unwise as it was, I would persevere. About a century later, I reached a fork that was convenient to a second-story window, and maneuvered my pathetic corpse around to brace myself in place, making myself as comfortable as I could. According to Nadir, this was the level where Anne and the boy slept.

I was looking directly into the sitting room. It was well-lit. Electric lights in amber sconces dispelled the night. The first thing that caught my attention was the dog. She lay in the center of the room, stretched out to her full length, her head between her front paws, flat on the floor. Her eyes were fixed worshipfully on a particular doorway.

She was a big animal—heavily muscled and beautifully molded. I saw her sides inflate and heave out a sigh; she thumped her tail in a desultory fashion.

This was a creature to avoid. She looked swift—she looked strong—she looked as if she weighed more than I did.

I took in the rest of the room. The walls were painted a soft yellow. There were two armchairs directly in front of my window, with a work table in between. I could see a basket of yarns jutting out from under the corner of it. Further down the room to the right, a settee and a curio cabinet. To the left, a pair of bookshelves, crammed full of books. That was good; perhaps they were not complete illiterates after all. On the other hand, all the books could very well be cookbooks.

On one wall, I could see several picture frames; a colored print of a Raphael, a particularly gentle image of a joyful Christ Child and tender Mary, some photographs, most likely of various Norberts, and a lady's fan, spread wide and mounted under glass. Although I couldn't see it very clearly, I could tell that it was made of fine lace. Alençon, no doubt, and no doubt also the work of a Norbert, perhaps even Anne herself.

There were also several large pen-and-ink renderings, of various subjects, tacked to the walls without frames. I wondered about them, until I noticed the signature—a single, familiar name—Erik.

He was like me, then, inside as well as out. The area near the bookshelves was full of toys and other items that obviously belonged to him—a child-sized chair, a small violin case—.

The dog suddenly raised her head, her cropped ears pricked up, and her tail beat a rapid tattoo on the floor. As she scrambled to her feet, I could see the reason why; the sun and moon of her particular firmament were coming.

The boy was first. Skipping. Stamping, and softly chanting, "A new book! A new book!" "Hush, love." said Anne, following him. She was dressed in a thick red bathrobe, and her head was swathed in a towel. "Into your nightshirt, now, and be sure to wash your face and brush your teeth real good."

He disappeared into one of the doors in the wall opposite my vantage point; she went into another, and turned on a light. It was her bedroom, I could see the end of the bedstead, a chest of drawers, a table bearing a lamp with a pressed-glass shade. The walls were a warm shade that fell between peach and rose, and I watched her shadow play across them as she moved around, somewhere out of my sight.

I glanced at the other doorway, his doorway. He had not bothered to turn on a light; I wondered if he had my night-sight. A movement in her room drew my attention again.

She had shed the robe and towel, and stood in front of her chest of drawers. A loose nightgown covered her from her neck to her feet, leaving her arms bare, and her back was toward me.

As I watched, she took a brush and attended to her damp hair. Is there anything so graceful and lovely as a woman combing out her long hair? The fabric of her gown was thin, and the light filtered through it, hinting subtly at her shape beneath.

There was one advantage to my weakened state; what might have been painful to contemplate was instead merely a faint, sad regret. In any case, I knew enough now to know that the anticipation was more significant than the actual achievement.

The boy emerged from his room, and went in the central door, which, once he flicked on the light, was revealed to be a washroom. He stepped up on a stool before the sink, took soap and washcloth, and worked a lather up on his face. I could see his profile. Once he had rinsed, I saw him do something extraordinary—he made an odd series of gestures and facial contortions, pulling on his eyelids and turning his lower lip inside out.

I suddenly realized that he was looking in a mirror—making faces at himself, in fact.

I wanted to laugh at that. I wanted to cry, as well.

Leaving off making faces at himself, he glanced at the door—to see if his mother was coming?—opened a tin, wetted one finger, and dipped it in. Then he rubbed it on his upper gum.

Anne joined him in the washroom. "You done?"

"Uh-huh."

"You brush your teeth?"

"Yes, Mam."

The little scamp! He had only rubbed a bit of tooth powder on his gum, so his breath would smell of it!

"Give me a smile then, dearheart." She tipped his chin up with a finger.

He grinned.

"All right. Now you'll brush your teeth proper with me right here watching."

"But, Mam!" he began.

"But me no buts, my lad. Your teeth is still yellow, and I can see a strawberry seed as is stuck right up here." She pointed to a spot in her own mouth. "Now, brush."

He wetted his toothbrush, loaded it with powder, and brushed, while she stood there with her arms crossed.

"That's fine. You can spit."

He did. "That's my good boy." She reached out and ruffled his hair. "There isn't a trick I don't know, see? I even come up with some of them. Have you gone yet?"

"No."

"Then you best do it now." She left the washroom, shutting the door behind her, and then went into his room.

When she turned on the light, she revealed walls hung with cheerful wallpaper, and a single bed, covered with a knitted spread that was diagonally striped in blue and red. She turned down the covers, then bent and picked his clothes off the floor. She turned them right-side out, and began going through the pockets. Something she found in one of them made her grimace; she opened a window and tossed whatever it was out into the night.

"What have I told you about bringing home toads and suchlike in your pockets?" she called.

"What, Mam?" was the muffled reply.

"Never mind." she said.

"Can't hear you, Mam!"

After she put the garments away, she came right over to the work table, the one in front of my window, and took a book from a table drawer. She was no more than six feet away from me.

Suddenly she looked directly into my eyes, and smiled playfully.

"Hallo, Moggy." she said. "What're you doing there?"

I started, and nearly fell out of the tree. Moggy—that was another word for a cat. I breathed a sigh of relief. She had seen my eyes, which reflect light as no other human's do—and taken me for a black cat.

I forced myself to relax again. She had turned her attention to the book/ Frowning in concentration at a page in it while she petted the dog, she then crossed the room to take a thicker volume from one of the bookshelves.

The boy came out of the washroom, and together they entered his room. The dog padded after them.

"Into bed now," she directed him, and he climbed in, sitting up against the headboard. She pulled the covers up around his waist, and sat beside him.

"Louis Pasteur—His Life and Achievements" she began.

"Who's he?"

"Well, you know as how all the milk we get is pasteurized? That means it's had done to it what Dr. Pasteur come up with to make it safe to drink, so folk don't get sick. He's discovered and invented lots more nor that, like how to stop folk what get bit by a mad dog from getting rabies and dying, and that didn't happen too long ago, neither. He's a man what was born with more gifts and brains nor what's usually given to men, and he's used them to do a lot of good in this world. He liked drawing when he was a boy, just like you do, and he was real good at it, too."

"Ohhh! And he's real?"

"Yes. He's still alive, but he's old now. Let's start at the beginning…" She opened the book.

The thicker volume she took from the shelves turned out to be a dictionary. When they encountered an unfamiliar word or concept, they looked it up.

As I watched and listened to them, it seemed to me as if I were watching a scene in a play. There sat Penelope and Telemachus, mother and son, waiting for Odysseus to return to them.

Surely he would return soon; perhaps even while I watched. Even though I knew what I did, and knew it was not possible, still I watched and awaited the sound of a foot on the stairs. Then the figure of a man would fill the doorway, a tall man, dressed in a cloak, stained and creased from much travel, wearing a hat, and yes, a mask.

Their heads would turn. I could almost hear their startled gasps, as he asked, tentatively, "Anne, my darling?"

He would sweep off the hat and mask then, and drop them, heedless of where they fell, as his wife flew to him.

The boy would get up to watch, hesitating, as his parents embraced, her arms around his neck, his around her body. After a kiss that was far too brief, she would bury her face in his neck, and mumble something only he could hear.

"I know," would be his reply. "I've missed you, too. But I am back now, and I will never leave you again. Either of you…"

"Da?" the boy would ask, his head tipped to the side.

"Yes," Anne would tell him. "It's him. He's come home." And she would draw the boy forward to join them.

I wanted to see that scenario unfold before me. I wanted to press my hands and my forehead against the glass until it melted and I melted and reformed on the other side, my vision blurring and tilting and changing, and then I would be there in the flesh and bone and person of that man, that husband, that father.

I wanted to be there, bending over that little bed, as she closed the book, despite his pleas of "More! More!"

"Tomorrow night." she assured him. "Slide down now, love."

I wanted to be the one who pulled the covers up, as the dog lay her head on the bed, watching it all with eloquent eyes that said, 'This is the center of the universe, and it is good here.'

I wanted to add my kisses to hers on his brow, feel his arms lace around my neck, and say good night a dozen times before she and I finally put out the light, and closed the door behind us, my arm around her waist. We would go, then, to her, no, our room, and I would run my hands through that mass of hair before she pinned it up for sleep, as I now watched her doing.

Yes, and then lay down with her, and have her nestle in against me, and fall asleep, knowing that there would be time later to say all that was wanted and needed, once we were rested. There would be time for everything, later. Now was the time to heal.

I waited for a long time before I unfolded myself and began to climb down from the tree. My mind was reeling. Two thoughts whirled around each other—the first—

There isn't enough money in the world to buy that.

—for that was love, it could not be anything less—and the second thought—

Christine could not possibly have done better for our son than this—this place, this woman, this Anne.

Unfortunately, my position in that tree had caused my left foot and leg to go to sleep, and when I went to climb down, it collapsed under me, and I fell, landing with such a blindingly painful jolt to the spine that I blacked out for a short time.

I must have caused some disturbance, for the lights in the kitchen house were all turned on once more. I heard the warning bark of a big dog—Truffle had been let out. I tried to turn over, to scramble to my feet, but I couldn't, I was still stunned by the fall.

I heard a growl, saw the dark shape of the dog approach me slowly, cautiously, saw her hunch and gather herself for a spring.

She knocked the breath out of me again. I crossed my hands over my neck, that she might sink her teeth into my forearms rather than my throat.

The slavering jaws were dangerously near, I could hear her panting, I could feel her hot breath. I wondered briefly what Nadir would do with my body.

Then she made a quizzical noise—sniffed twice—and an enormous wet tongue slapped my hands.

I breathed out. Why? Was it possible that I smelled like the boy? I didn't know. "There's a good Truffle." I forced out, and petted her. She liked that, and let me use her to pull myself up.

Above us, a window opened. "Whoever you be," shouted Anne. "I'm armed. Get yourself out of here, and fast!"

She didn't have to tell me twice. Truffle accompanied me part of the way back to the cottage, but a frantic whistle stopped her. She looked from me back to the kitchen house, and whined. "You should go." I told her, and gestured. She bounded away.

I made it back to the cottage without further incident. Nadir and Darius were probably asleep by now, and I did not want to wake them. Nor did I feel like going to bed immediately. Instead, I went to the cottage's dining room, turned on one light, and got my dessert from the cabinet where I had left it earlier. I had not wanted it then. I wanted it now.

It was a chocolate mousse, piped into a tall parfait glass, and topped with a fresh strawberry cut into a flower. It looked a bit tired now, that mousse, but that was my fault. I had let it sit. I picked up a spoon, took some, and paused to look at.

I had never cared for food very much, perhaps—perhaps because my mother had always demanded, insisted, forced food on me. Whether I ate or not was something I could control, and because she had wanted me to, I did not.

But then my mother had left out the most important ingredient—genuine affection.

I put the spoonful into my mouth, and for the first time, I truly thought about what I was putting into my mouth, I opened myself up to the experience of eating, of enjoying what I ate. I rolled the light, rich spoonful of mousse over my tongue, and let it melt. The texture was soft, almost foamy. The flavor was deep and intense, full of a hundred thousand notes and hints. The strawberry was cool, barely sweet at all, but firm, and its contrast to the mousse heightened the taste of both. I took another spoonful.

This was, in its way, art. Art in the way that music was art—something that required both performer and audience, something that existed only for a brief moment in time, but which could be recreated, with variations.

The mousse did get rather salty as I got to the bottom of the dish, but that too was my fault. My eyes had been streaming very freely, and tears, as everyone knows, are salty.

Chocolate Mousse of Great Profundity:

For many years I thought I hated chocolate mousse; then I made some on my own. I discovered with the first bite that I didn't hate chocolate mousse, I hated my mother's chocolate mousse. Hers was grainy and watery and thoroughly nasty.

I learned to cook in self-defense. My mother was a very bad cook, who managed to ruin and burn Toll-House chocolate chip cookies whenever she made them.

1 envelope unflavored powdered gelatin

¼ cup cold water

1/3 cup boiling water

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup dark Dutch (or European) alkali processed cocoa

2 cups or 1 pint very cold heavy whipping cream. (NOT table cream, NOT non-fat dairy creamer, NOT the stuff that comes in an aerosol can, NOT pre-sweetened baker's whipping cream. Just plain heavy whipping cream.)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Take a heavy glass bowl and put it in the freezer about half an hour before you make this. In order to whip cream, it must be cold, and the colder it is, the better it will whip. Glass will stay cold best; porcelain is also good. Metal and plastic bowls are useless.

Sprinkle the powdered gelatin over the cold water in a small bowl, and let it sit for 2 minutes to soften. Add the boiling water, and stir until it is completely dissolved. Let it cool slightly.

Take the bowl out of the freezer, and combine the cocoa and sugar in it. Add the whipping cream and vanilla, and beat at medium speed with an electric mixer. Scrape the bowl's sides with a spatula every so often. Continue until it is stiff. Add the gelatin mixture, and beat until well blended. The gelatin helps the mousse to maintain its stability, so the cream won't go back to being liquid.

Spoon into dessert dishes immediately (or, if you have a pastry bag and decorating tips as used to decorate cakes, you can get fancy and pipe it in). Refrigerate for at least half an hour. Garnish with sliced strawberries, or your choice of fruit. Store covered in refrigerator, if there is any left. Don't eat too much of this immediately before going to bed, because it is loaded with sugar and you won't sleep.

A/N: Anybody who wants to know what Truffle looks like should check out the website aboutbeaucerons . com, and look in their photo gallery—especially the Beaucerons At Work and Play. She's one of the three colored Harlequin type, and she has cropped, or docked ears.

Hello, everyone! Well, Emily, here's an update! How's that for soon?

Erik for President: I sent you an email answering you. If it got lost or eaten, might I suggest you check out my other phic?

Allegratree: I'm so sorry! How's your puppy? We get so attached to these little creatures… I think the lack of nausea you felt might be attributed to context. I would never write such dialog for a love scene between two adults. Ever.

Phantom Raver: I know for a fact that Anne would find a Strawberry Wobbler hilarious.

Nota Lone: Wait and see, my friend, wait and see.

Bella: Thanks. I'm glad I made things just a little better for you. I've been known to make chicken pot pie now and then, so we'll see.

Sue Raven: You're right. He'll never have it easy, but he will have a solid center to draw on.

Pickledishkiller: I send you a cyber hug.

Sat Isis: You sure called that one... don't let it go to your head.