A Tap on the Window

Forty-eight

“I’ve been thinking,” the woman says, having unlocked the door and entered the man’s room.

“About what?” he says groggily. He is on the bed, covers pulled back, an open magazine on his chest. He’d fallen asleep reading. He sleeps more and more these days.

“Maybe it would be a good thing for you to get some fresh air.”

He looks at her warily. “Are you serious?”

“Of course. You’ve been cooped up in here so long.”

“I don’t even — I don’t even know how long it is anymore.”

“The time does kind of fly by,” the woman says. “It seems like only yesterday.”

“I’d love to sit on the porch. Could I sit on the porch?”

“Oh, I was thinking of something much better than that. I was thinking that we could go for a drive. Not just you and me, but all three of us.”

He sits up, swings his legs over the side of the bed. “Where would we go?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“I... I don’t even know. Just getting out of the house, that’d be so wonderful. Just to go for a drive and — you know what I’d love to do?”

“What?”

“I’d love to go for an ice cream.” He frowns. “But I guess we can’t go any place where I’ll be seen.”

“I don’t know that we need to worry about that. If you could get some ice cream, what kind would you get?”

The man thinks. “I guess chocolate. I’d get chocolate.”

“You could have more than one flavor, you know. You could get a big bowl of it. You could have two or three kinds.”

He looks like a child who’s been promised a trip to Santa’s Village. “What other flavors are there?”

She laughs. “Where to begin? There are so many. Jamoca Almond Fudge. Strawberry. Heavenly Hash. They have ice creams with crumbled-up candy bar in them.”

“They do?”

“Cookies, too.”

He shakes his head, like it’s all too much. “Chocolate. That’s all I want. If I can have three scoops, I’d want them all to be chocolate.”

“It’s settled then,” she says.

“When is this going to happen?” he asks.

“Soon. Very soon. There are just a couple of things to work out.”

The man smiles. It takes a lot out of him. The muscles that are employed to make a person smile have not been used by the man in some time.

“You’ve made my day. That’s great news.” He puts his hands together. “I can almost taste the ice cream on my tongue.”

“You just keep thinking about that,” the woman says as she retreats from the room and relocks the door.