What did Mallorca have to do with Harmony, Illinois? Why were tunes of hot Spanish nights coming out of this guitar here in the cold of December, with Christmas coming on and the little dying firs and pines standing up in the tree lots? It was the dream of love, that's what it was, the dream but not the memory of love because in the long run it never turned out to be real. In the long run she always woke up from love and felt it slip away the way dreams slip away in the morning, retreating all the faster the harder you try to remember them. It was always a mirage, but when she got thirsty for it the way she was now, it would come back, that dream, and make her warm again, make her sweat with the sweetness of it.

Maybe there was a noise. Maybe just the movement at the door. She looked up, and there were young Dougie and Rose, both of them awake, their faces sleepy but their eyes bright.

"I'm sorry," said Rainie, immediately setting the guitar aside.

"That's Dad's guitar," said Rose.

"You're good," said Dougie. "I wish I could play like that."

"I wish Dad could play like that," said Rose, giggling.

"I shouldn't be in here."

"What was that song?" asked Dougie. "I think I've heard it before."

"I don't think so," said Rainie. "I was making it up as I went along."

"It sounded like one of Dad's records."

"Well, I guess I'm not very original-sounding," said Rainie. She felt unbelievably awkward. She didn't belong in this room. It wasn't her room. But there they were in the doorway, not seeming to be angry at all.

"Can't you play some more?" said Dougie.

"You need your sleep," said Rainie. "I shouldn't have wakened you."

"But we're already awake," said Rose. "And we don't have school tomorrow, it's Saturday."

"No, no," said Rainie. "I have to get home." She brushed apologetically past them and hurried down the stairs.

Everybody was gone. The house was quiet. How long had she played?

Douglas was in the kitchen, making a honey sandwich. "It's my secret vice," he said. "It's making me fat. Want one?"

"Sure," she said. She couldn't remember ever having a honey sandwich in her life. She watched him pull the honey out of the jar, white and creamy, and spread it thickly on a slice of bread.

"Lid or no lid?" he asked.

"No lid," she said. She picked it up and bit into it and it was wonderful. He bit into his. A thin strand of honey stretched between his mouth and the bread, then broke, leaving a thread of honey down his chin.

"It's messy, but I don't care," he said.

"Where do you buy bread like this?"

"Jaynanne makes it," he said.

Of course. Of course she makes bread.

"Where is everybody?" she asked.

"Went home," said Doug. "Don't worry about a ride. They all had wives waiting for them, and I don't, so I said I'd take you home."

"No, I don't want you to have to go out on a night like this."

"I figured we'd leave a note on Minnie's door telling her you'd be late tomorrow."

"No," said Rainie. "I'll be there on time."

"It's after midnight."

"I've slept less and done more the next day. But I hate to have you have to drive me."

"So what would you do, walk?"

I'd sleep in your bed, Rainie said silently. I'd get up in the morning and we'd make breakfast together, and we'd eat it together, and then when the kids got up we'd fix another breakfast for them, and they'd laugh with us and be glad to see us. And we'd smile at each other and remember the sweetness in the dark, the secret that the children would never understand until twenty, thirty years from now. The secret that I'm only beginning to understand tonight.

"Thanks, I'll ride," said Rainie.

"Dad's out seeing to the dog. He worries that the dog gets too cold on nights like this."

"What, does he heat the doghouse?"

"Yes, he does," said Douglas. "He keeps bricks just inside the fireplace and then when he puts the fire out at night he wraps the hot bricks in a cloth and carries them outside and puts them in the doghouse."

"Does the dog appreciate it?"

"He sleeps inside with the bricks. He wags his tail. I guess he does." Douglas's bread was gone. She reached up and wiped the honey off his chin with her finger, then licked her finger clean.

"Thanks," he said.

But she could hear more in his voice than he meant to say. She could hear that faint tremble in his voice, the hesitation, the uncertainty. He could have interpreted her gesture as motherly. He could have taken it as a sisterly act. But he did not. Instead he was taking it the way she meant it, and yet he wasn't sure that she really meant it that way.

"Better go," he said. "Morning comes awful early."

They bundled up and went outside. They met Grandpa coming around the front of the house. "Night," Grandpa said.

"Night," said Rainie. "It was good talking to you."

"My pleasure entirely," he said. He sounded perfectly cheerful, which surprised her. Why should it surprise her?

Because I'm planning to do what he warned me not to do, thought Rainie. I'm planning to sleep with Douglas Spaulding tonight. He's mine if I want him, and I want him. Not forever, but tonight, this sweet lonely night when my music came back to me in his house, sitting on his bed, playing his guitar. Jaynanne can spare me this one night, out of all her happiness. There'll be no pain for anyone, and joy for him and me, and there's nothing wrong with that, I don't care what anyone says.

She got in his car and sat beside him, watching the fog of his breath in the cold air as he started the engine. She never took her eyes off him, seeing how the light changed when the headlights came on inside the garage, how it changed again as he leaned over the back seat, guiding the car in reverse down the driveway. He pressed a button and the garage door closed after them.

No one else was on the road. No one else seemed even to exist -- all the houses were dark and still, and the tires crunching on snow were the only noise besides the engine, besides their breathing.

He tried to cover what was happening with chat. "Good game tonight, wasn't it?"

"Mm-hm," she said.

"Fun," he said. "Crazy bunch of guys. We act like children, I know it."

"I like children," she said.

"In fact, my kids are more mature than I am when I'm with those guys."

She remembered speaking to them tonight, their faces so sleepy. "I woke them, I'm afraid. I was playing your guitar. That's a bad habit of mine, intruding in people's houses. Sort of an invited burglar or something."

"I heard you playing," he said.

"Clear downstairs? I thought I was quieter than that."

"Steel strings," he said. "And the vents are all open in the winter. Sound carries. It was beautiful."

"Thanks."

"It was -- beautiful," he said again, as if he had searched for another word and couldn't think of one. "It was the kind of music I've always longed for in my home, but I've never been good enough on the guitar to play like that myself."

"You keep it in tune."

"If I don't the dog barks."

She laughed, and he smiled in return. She couldn't stop looking at him. The heater was on now, so his breath didn't make a fog. The streetlights brightened his face; then it fell dark again. He's not that handsome. I'd never have looked at him twice if I'd met him in L.A. or New York. He would have been just another accountant there. So many bright lights in the city, how can someone like this ever shine there? But here, in the snow, in this small town, I can see the truth. That this is the true light, the one that all those neon lights and strobes and spots and halogens are trying to imitate but never can.

They pulled up in front of her apartment. He switched off his lights. The dark turned bright again almost immediately, as the snow reflected streetlights and moonlight.