Funeral for a Friend

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Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water falling.

Jonathan Stride lay in bed, his dark eyes wide open, his body stretched atop the sheets. His bare leg brushed the bare leg of his wife, their skin damp with a sheen of sweat. Summer heat through the open window made the bedroom a sauna of wet, scorching air. He couldn’t sleep.

Outside the old house, nothing moved on the lazy Duluth night. Nothing in the world made a sound. Not the pond frogs. Not the crickets. Not the spruces towering over the roof. Even Lake Superior, on the other side of the dunes, couldn’t muster the energy to throw waves against the sand, and so the beach was silent.

When Stride listened, the only thing he heard was the slow drumbeat of water, driving him crazy.

He got out of bed and slipped a white T-shirt over his chest. In the moonlit glow of the bedroom, he watched his wife sleeping on her back in a pink nightgown, her breasts visible through the cups of lace. Her blond hair spilled in a tangle across her face. Her legs were slightly parted, one knee bent. She made an erotic sight that way, arousing him. He bent down and stroked his fingertips across her thigh.

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