When the phone rang, she was in the shower. I picked up and said hello to her mother, who knew neither my voice nor our affection, the secrets we shared while kept in close spaces. Her mother asked after her, waited while I took the phone over. She was standing on the tub's ledge, partly wrapped in the curtain. I thought maybe modesty had arranged her so, but the scene slowly resolved into her bare shoulders and the curve of her breast, the veil's bluegreen folds echoing and concealing the posture she had assumed.

She unwrapped herself and, with the tip of one thumb, muffled the phone's mouthpiece as she would a runny spout, telling me not to tell. I remember the summer moon folded us together. I remember she kept slipping off the couch.