Then he nodded to me and to her and left.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked me.

We went back through the house and out the front door and spoke to no one, looked at no one.

We didn鈥檛 talk about it as we drove home or as we lay awake in the middle of the night. I feared she would start in on me and ask me things. My voice seemed trapped in my throat, images of the couple silenced me. I kept seeing them standing together at a party, her body against his, their eyes roving, she squeezing my severed tongue in her hand, he raising his martini to me and winking.