Not exactly news, but he wishes he could do more to help, to settle her somehow; ease the heaving of her chest, quell the wide-eyed growing panic in her eyes.
Look for something you can touch, he had said.
Danny can feel her eyes on him, as weighty as a touch. If only. These days, it’s the closest they can get. Their eyes had learned to speak for them, back before when he was still alive. Now they were working overtime. Learning a new language. So he stands, still and patient, while Sara circles him with her hands in his pockets. He watches them instead of her, trying to fight off a smile.
So you figured it out, huh?
Easier to resist the temptation to reach out and touch if your hands are otherwise occupied. His own hands rest heavy in his pockets.
He ducks his head as she completes the circle, contrition pressing his eyes to the floor. The room is briefly eclipsed behind a curtain of dark.
He lets that sit for a second, gives the words a moment to sink into the room around them, which feels dark despite the lamp throwing light onto the floor. He traces the woodgrain with his eyes, a form of touch, like he’s learning it, its whorls and shadows, dips and ridges. It looks solid and dependable.
Danny’s eyes cut to the ceiling.
“Family,” he answers, and finds Sara’s face. “The people I love.” His lips form their names, silently, and he shapes the vowels with his mouth. A litany of clipped, two-syllable sounds. There is trite amusement in the curl of his smile.
She didn’t say he couldn’t include her, just not to say her name.
Her voice warbles, ending on a high note. An anxious tell. Grounding, he thinks. His eyes soften, gone liquid in the pool of lamplight he’s standing in in the middle of her floor.
