Because the night
Dara Carroll
It might have started the night that Lil couldn’t sleep.
“Mom!” she called.
Sounds echo in this house like a shot in the dark and it was a few deep breaths before the air stilled again. My eyes stayed open but I didn’t stir.
“MAMA!”
Charlie didn’t respond either. She was currently more active than me, but also more asleep. Only wakeful people can be absolutely still, it’s the sleepers that roll around carelessly. I wanted her to go but I didn’t want to feel the loneliness of being unable to wake her. I was excessively clumsy on my way out, so focused on creating noise that I actually stubbed my toe for real – badly but, unfortunately, soundlessly.
Lil was standing over a pile of toys when I walked in, two in hand. The turtle and a postal worker were in concentrated conversation. When she saw me at the door, she lept into bed. I didn’t hold back my laugh.
She widened her eyes, straining for innocence.
“Mom.”
“Lil.”
“I was scared.”
I sat.
“Of what?”
“There was a noise over there.” She didn’t bother to point anywhere. “And it has sounds of a monster or snake viper!” She almost looked pleased with that last turn of phrase. I started stroking her back and she laid down, pinning my hand. I tried to slide it free but she pressed back into it and I paused.
“Do you want back scratches?”
“Ummm, ye-es.”
“Roll over and I’ll scratch.” She didn’t move much but she went with me as I gently turned her over to face me. I laid down and settled my arm across her soft shoulder.
“Come on now try and understand. The way I feel when I’m in your hands.”
I sang softly so that I might lull Lil but shivered at the way my voice sounded strained and caught.
“Take my hand come undercover.”
The first time Charlie heard Because the Night, she was in the lab watching me sleep. Years later I would wonder who she really fell in love with there in the belly of the Psych building basement, me or Patti Smith. But by then too much time had passed to ask such explosive questions and the truth is it might not have mattered.
“They can’t hurt you now, can’t hurt you now, can’t hurt you now.”
Char had been the one to start using Patti for bedtime songs. I squirmed at first, thinking about how many times we’d gotten off on this song, the private energy it had between us. Or maybe it was just remembering the early days, when Charlie still looked at me hungrily, that made my stomach drop.
“Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us.”
Now the song came to me naturally in these moments. I never paused over the replacement of “lust” with “us”. If I had to sing it in a karaoke bar, I imagine I would sing it this way without thinking. But what is the likelihood of ending up at a karaoke bar these days?
“Come on now try and understand. The way I feel under your command.”
I stayed, even after Lil fell asleep.
The next night I found out that Charlie had noticed.
“You weren’t in bed when I woke up.”
“Really?”
Her eyes shot up to mine and immediately away.
“Don’t you remember?”
Of course I did.
“Oh, I guess I just fell asleep with Lil. She was calling for you, you know. Well, us. Mom then Mama.”
Did it hurt her to know she was called second? Charlie was dropping her clothes on the floor as she moved to her side of the bed. She did not look up or stop undressing.
“You didn’t hear her at all?” I started to unbutton my blouse.
“No.”
I laughed and smelled vapers from the drink I left on the sideboard- bitters and orange.
“Well, that’s convenient.”
I waited for her eyes to pierce mine again but they dropped further, to the clothes on the floor. Her hand twitched. For a moment it looked like she was reaching towards them. Then she kept moving to the bed.
Later, I lay awake again, willing Lila to call out. But she did not and I stayed on my side of the bed until morning.
On the third night, I waved Charlie up the stairs with a loose wrist and raised eyebrows.
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll be up soon.”
It was Lila who I heard next. She called for Mama but I went anyway.
“Scratches. And singing.” she said.
I stayed on top of the covers but laid down.
“Because the night belongs to lovers. Because the night belongs to us.”
She turned over and I saw her perfect features, unscarred, unmarked. Her graceful ear. Could she hear me as she slept? Did she feel the bed shift with my weight lifted?
I sang to myself as I slipped out the front door.
“Because tonight belongs to lovers.”
The car keys knocked against the door handle as I turned them, the sound louder than my voice.
“Because tonight belongs to us. Because tonight there are two lovers. If we believe in the night we trust. Because tonight belongs to lust.”
Forum Literary Magazine 