HE reclined on the settee with his feet on the coffee table, and I sat next to him so that I could read by the light from the window. We remained like that more than an hour in an innate silence. Sometimes we didn't need to talk.
I was occupied by Dickens, but he had nothing to entertain him but the light as it moved to half-light on the bookshelf, the mantelpiece, the desk, and our feet beginning to share shadows.
When I dozed off he must have caught the book, for I cannot remember placing it over the side of the settee, and when I woke, he was still there. I squinted to watch him and wondered what he was thinking about, and in my mind I tried to describe his features [the eyes rested like a moth on a flower, lids opening and closing like wings, and when closed one imagined them in flight anyway] but the thing was he wasn't observing anything.