Free After Dark by M. Pierce

And Hannah, I knew it couldn’t last … that somehow I would have to pay for it, that happiness.”
    I blinked the tears from my eyes. Not one fell.
    “Matt, that’s—”
    I heard shock in her voice and I raised a hand to silence her.
    “It’s not ridiculous. It’s true.”
    She let it go, but I could feel her disapproval rumbling—her dislike of my deeply held belief that the price of pleasure is pain.
    “We’ll be different,” I said. “I see no point in disguising our wealth from our children.” I glanced at her. She stuttered out a few “um”s and “well”s . “Bird, I know…”
    “You do?” Her eyes widened.
    “Of course. I know you want to live simply. And we will, somehow. But it would be a farce, to force a small home and public schooling on our children. Not that we’ll spoil them, but we’ll give them the best possible footing for a good future…” I rambled about my plans, expecting Hannah to interrupt. She didn’t, though, and I wondered again if she was keeping something from me. Maybe she knew she couldn’t have kids. Maybe she was afraid to tell me.
    But if that was the case, why the IUD?
    I smirked and shook my head, dismissing my heavy thoughts.
    I drove to the Fudge Shoppe, a chocolate store owned by an old family friend. I had fond memories of the place—the smell of cocoa, Easter rabbits taller than my nine-year-old body, dipping strawberries in deep silvery vats.
    A boyhood friend ran the shop now. He’d bulked up, got a sleeve of tattoos and shaved his head, but we recognized one another immediately.
    We embraced, and I introduced Hannah as my fianc é e.
    “Nothing’s changed,” I said, looking into the glass cases.
    “Well, we’re making chocolate from bean to bar now.” Stephen took us to the back room and showed us around. Hannah dipped a strawberry, giggling as she did, and I dipped another and fed it to her. I kissed the warm chocolate from her lips.
    “Is your dad around?” I was hoping to see Stephen’s father, a white-haired man even when I’d known him, who used to show up for church with chocolate stains on his suit. He was a good friend to my father.
    “Not today. He’s out with Lisa and the kids.”
    “Your kids?”
    “Yup. I got married, oh, seven years ago now. Got two little girls.”
    “Well, hey, congratulations.” I flashed a smile at Hannah. She looked pointedly at the ground. “How is all that?”
    “It’s good, man. Really good.” Stephen folded his arms and nodded. The bells on the front door jingled, announcing a shopper. “I better get out there. Help yourself to anything.”
    “I was actually hoping you had a key to the church,” I said. “Wanted to show Hannah.”
    “Oh, yeah, of course.” Stephen dashed upstairs, his feet thumping overhead, and returned with a key chain. “Front door and back. That’s just the shed.”
    I promised to return the key before five and I drove Hannah over to Three Bridges Reformed Church. I parked in the side lot and led her to the front of the building. We held hands and admired the classic clapboard steeple, the whitewash and red door.
    Large trees shaded us.
    “I remember playing on this lawn between services,” I said. Hannah pressed against my side. “Nate would sit in the church, up near the pulpit, and like some wizard”—I laughed—“order Seth and I to find random things for him. A dry leaf. A broken stick. We’d run down the aisle and come out here to search. We sort of worshiped him.”
    Inside, the church smelled musty. Cool air lay still on my skin.
    We sat on a pew and I closed my eyes and remembered for a while.
    Hannah held my hand in both of hers.
    When I was ready, I told her the rest of my story. I told her how Mom and Dad traveled to South America with a mission group once a year and provided free medical care to people living in the favelas—the slums of Brazil. I breezed over the accident: a bus crash on a winding mountain road. My parents instantly