Chez Charlotte and Emily - Excerpt

All they talked about for weeks when they were alone was the weather. How little sun they had had that summer, how changeable it was, how disappointing this summer's weather as opposed to last year's, or the year before's. Otherwise when they were together, she read a book or the paper-how much time Genevieve could give to the most newsless of newspapers-and he would sit, book open on his lap, in a hard-backed chair on the other side of the room, dead to himself. Sometimes he would be the one reading-it was curious how rarely they did the same things at the same time-and she would sit, empty-handed, thinking of one thing or another, her large gray eyes closed or focused inward. She wondered (her wonderment kept to herself) if she would ever again have anything to say to him. Sometimes when he was there, when he was silent and there, she thought of the room as being empty. She thought of herself as alone in the room or alone in no place at all, though he was there in the room with her for all eyes to see.