She hears him creep in, as he does every night. From the scratching of the key in the lock, she can count the drinks. Up the stairs, only faltering once. The odd number of steps at the top invariably breaks the dance. Recovery to a tip-toe step. Gentle light from the hallway. The creak from a dresser drawer, sounding curiously like the joints in old bodies. He pulls a rumpled shirt overhead, then one hand through his hair. A kept gesture from his youth, a sweep, and then a pat. All’s in place. The familiar weight of his body on the bed. The slow, contemplative unlacing of his shoes. One falls softly to the ground, then the other. The belt releases with a soft jangle, and pants rest beside the bed like a firefighter’s at the ready. He slips under the sheets.

She hears him creep in, as he does every night. But if she reaches out, if she stretches her pale arms across the sheets, he won’t be there. She will find only empty air for she laid him to rest in another place so many years ago.

She lets him nestle beside her, and finally whispers the words he has been waiting so long to hear: “I forgive you.”

BIO: Lori Romero is a published poet and fiction writer, and served as Artistic Director of Friends & Artists Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles. She currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Finishing Line Press will be publishing her first chapbook, Wall to Wall, in August 2004. Her short story, Strange Saints, was a semifinalist in the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award and her recent screenplay was a finalist in the Hollywood Symposium. Her poetry and short stories have been published in journals which include the Onset Review, Mystic River Review, Moxie Magazine, T-Zero Xpandizine, Poetry Motel, Mobius, Manzanita Quarterly, Branches, Lotus Blooms Journal and Zillah: A Poetry Journal.