“He saw us, you know.”

            “Yeah, I know,” Darren said. “Not much we can do about it now, is there?”

            “We should have been more careful.”
            “We were pretty fucking careful, already.”

            Sally shifted her weight on the edge of the bed.

            “What are we going to do?”

            “There’s nothing we can do,” Darren said. He’d been pacing in front of Sally. He was pulling at the little scrap of hair right below his lower lip. He called it a “soul patch,” though he thought that was somehow racist, and that bothered him. Before that, he’d referred to it as a “mouche,” but that sounded too affected.

            “You know,” Sally said, standing up abruptly. Her shirt was twisted, or at least felt twisted, and she tugged on the placket, shifting her hips from side to side. “I say, since there’s nothing we can do about it, we just keep doing what we’re doing, a morning like any other morning, and not say anything unless he asks.”

            “He’s going to ask.”

            “I know,” Sally said with a resigned sigh, sitting back on the edge of the bed.

            “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

            “It was bound to happen, eventually,” Sally said softly, hoping her voice alone could calm Darren.

            The room was a mess. Sheets dangling from the bed, the comforter wadded up like a fast-food wrapper and tossed in the corner. The lamp on her side of the bed was knocked over, most of the contents of the dresser were toppled or spilled or broken. The shower curtain had been ripped from its rod and was now spread out in the tub, the medicine cabinet door was open, one of the glass shelves shattered, bits of glass in the sink, shimmering on the floor, a bloody footprint.

            “Do you think he’ll tell?” Sally asked.

            “I don’t know. I imagine I would have told somebody, anybody – Granny or one of my teachers or somebody – if I had seen it when I was his age.”

            Darren stopped and rubbed his fingers through his hair. It was messy and poofed up, a little like George Harrison’s luxurious quiff before he became a Beatle.

            “Damn! He shouldn’t have been peeking in the first place,” he said.

            “We were a lot louder than usual.”

            “So. So! Is everything in this house subject to his spying and eavesdropping?”

            “Darren, come on. We were as loud as hell. And then after? Taking care of…you know? How could he not want to know what was going on?”

            Darren sighed, then flopped his arms down to his side in resignation, then tiptoed down the hall and into the guest bedroom and rolled up the area rug and hoisted it onto his shoulder and carried it to the bedroom and rolled it out and covered the large, dark stain drying on the carpet.

            “Shit,” he said, wiping the dust from his arms. “He saw us, didn’t he?”

            “Yeah. He saw us.”