The first thing Roy remembered was light — too bright, gilded and smeared like oil in water. It wasn’t the cut crystal of the Sinclair chandeliers so much as a golden smear, everything soft-edged and unreal. Sound came after light: the thrum of the band from two floors below, a distant cheer, someone laughing just beyond comprehension. It was as if he was watching the world from the bottom of a well.
Beneath the stupor, a thread of warmth curled through him and he thought, for a second so perfect it felt like a prayer, that he was wrapped in Dianne’s arms. The softness at his cheek, the faint taste on his lips, the slower cadence of breath—there was a memory that belonged to a thousand better mornings, when the world had been quieter and she had been nearer. It felt truer than anything; h
