On their first night in the rented house, Selma counted the wooden strips across the ceiling. Then she counted how often Enver pulled the covers towards himself. After midnight she abandoned arithmetic, took her pillow, and went into the little room where their children had slept for years. The children were now holidaying with their own friends. The bed beside the window was empty, cool, and wonderfully still.
She woke at nine, rested enough to feel she had been given a new head. Enver was sitting outside with two coffees that had long gone cold. When she asked why he had not woken her, he said he had not known whether he was allowed in. Selma laughed, then saw that he was serious. To him, a pillow in another room was practically a packed suitcase.
They had slept together for thirty years. Their bed had survived children's fevers, cramped rented rooms, Selma's night shifts, and Enver's returns from travelling. Separating it now, when they finally had the place to themselves, felt like the wrong beginning to the rest of their lives. He told her this on the beach, so quietly she had to lean across the bag. She sighed. She loved that man, but his anxiety could not make her spend another night hunting for the edge of a sheet.
She suggested swapping sides. He suggested another cover. That night they had four pillows, two sheets, and an entire little border dispute between them. At three they were both sitting up, awake. Selma burst out laughing first. Enver followed her, reluctantly, then completely. He carried her pillow into the next room as though it were a ceremonial flag.
For the rest of the holiday they ate breakfast later than he preferred, and he went for his morning swim alone. Selma joined him afterwards, bringing peaches. In the evenings they stayed in the same bed talking until one grew sleepy. Crossing the hallway became so ordinary that once she took his book as well, and he had to go and retrieve it.
Before they went home, Enver asked whether she would move rooms there too. Selma did not know. Their spare room was still full of boxes, winter coats, and an exercise bike that nobody rode. She said they would have to move the bike first. He looked at the sea for a long time, then asked whether a small armchair could take its place. He would like to come over and read before bed.