And so it was like this that Nathan closed his eyes.  He thought maybe he should get up, put on something other than his boxers, or move away, in case Catherine awoke.  Instead he felt her breathing, now slipping, falling into sync with his own breath, his own body.  Nathan thought he shouldn’t go to sleep like this. It probably wasn’t appropriate, him a married man and everything that entailed.  And then he felt himself drifting.  The words from Catherine’s note playing in the background, he heard her whisper “Come back to take me, lead me far away . . .”  But when Nathan awoke, it was only to find himself holding a pillow.   And so he stared now into the darkness, and heard the silence in a way he hadn’t before.  It rang loudly in his ears, playing out the sounds and the songs of what he’d hoped for, all that came rushing back to him from the moments of the days before that now played out in sirens songs, calling madly in his ears tempting him, drawing him into their silence.

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