Page 43 of Coyote

"No."

"Then tell me."

"There was somebody before you."

Coyote's nails pressed into my nape.

"His name was John Horner." Five years without saying his name to another person, and it came out unchanged. "Everybody called him Little John because I was already Big John when we met."

Coyote's fingers tightened.

"He was my husband."

The bones turned above us with a dry little click.

For a second, Coyote looked at my hands. Maybe for a ring. Maybe for some mark a dead man should have left where everybody could see it.

"How long?" he asked.

"Twelve years."

His eyes came back to mine. "Where is he?"

I shook my head and tried not to let my eyes water. "Dead."

The word was too small. One hard syllable for a man who used to sing badly while he cooked and leave wet towels on the bathroom floor, and laugh so loudly I could find him anywhere in a crowded room.

Coyote's hand loosened at my neck.

"Five years ago," I said. "COVID took him."

I rubbed my thumb over the same place on his knee again and again. The skin beneath it grew warm. I couldn't make myself stop.

"He got sick. Then he got worse. I watched every number on the monitor fall and knew exactly what each one meant. Didn't give me a goddamn thing I could do about it."

I looked through the mouth of the cave until the rock outside steadied.

"When he stopped breathing, I had my hand on his chest. I kept it there waiting for the next one." My fingers curled against Coyote's knee. "I knew there wasn't going to be another. I was a doctor. I knew. But I kept waiting anyway."

Coyote came closer and pressed two fingers to the pulse in my throat, as if he needed to feel it.

"I tried to save him. I did everything that I could, but there weren't enough respirators or medications. There weren't enough masks or gloves. Hell, there weren't enough of me to go around."

My chin dropped. For one ugly second, I was back beside that bed with my hand on a chest that had already stopped, bargaining for one more breath from a body that had nothing left to give me.

"Did you love him?"

"I still do."

His face tightened.

"I wake up and put my hand on his side of the bed. Most mornings I remember before I touch the mattress." I swallowed. "Some mornings I don't."

Coyote pulled his hand away. The loss of it left the back of my neck cold.

He rose to his knees and turned toward the cave mouth. His jaw worked. One hand opened and closed against his thigh.

"I don't share."