Free Nightlight by Michael Cadnum

actually went ahead and got married.”
    He could not look at her. Rain drooled down the windshield, and a crow laughed slowly in a stand of trees.
    The nakedness of what he had said coiled between them. Paul wrapped what was left of his sandwich, and looked away from her, watching water drop gently off the snaking branches of the grapevines.
    Her hand was on his hand, and then she held him, as well as she could with the gearshift jabbing them like a robot’s erection. She breathed into his ear, and he held her, but then she drew back. “I knew you were going to ask me,” she said. “I don’t know how, but I could tell.” She was blushing, and he had never seen her blush before. He thought it was with pleasure.
    â€œWhat do you think?” he asked, hoarsely.
    â€œIt’s wonderful that you should mention it,” she began.
    Paul held his breath.
    â€œAnd in a very strange and wonderful way, I feel honored.”
    Paul waited.
    â€œBecause certainly if I were thinking of marrying anyone, it would be you.”
    Paul exhaled very slowly.
    She looked away, and he followed her gaze through the bleary windshield toward the perfect gray sky. “A long time ago I decided how I was going to live my life. I was just a girl, walking home from the library with books that I really wasn’t going to understand very well at all. Darwin. Milton. Melville. Anything I could get my hands on that I had heard grown-ups mention, or had read about in the encyclopedia, I wanted to read. And I decided that someday I would be a scholar, and know practically everything there was to know.”
    The steering wheel was cold, and the chill that surrounded the car breathed slowly into it.
    â€œNaturally, it was difficult. Both of my parents were basically undereducated. High school, period, and not very sophisticated high school. I don’t think college is the only way to get an education, but my father doesn’t even know who Milton, or Keats, or Dickens were. Never even heard of them. And my mother’s idea of good writing is a little collection of Hallmark inspirational verse, the sort of book with cartoon lambs cavorting in it, and butterflies with smiling faces. Butterflies, for Christ’s sake. Smiling insects!”
    Paul opened his mouth to stop her, but words fled him.
    â€œNeither one of them was at all interested in my going to college, and I had to work my way, as you know, hauling linen out of motel rooms, and pouring coffee for lechers. I’m not complaining. But I finally got a grant to do graduate work and nail a PhD, and nothing is going to stop me.”
    â€œBut someday …” Paul began.
    â€œSomeday, soon, I’ll have my dissertation polished off, and then I’ll go to teach at maybe Stanford, I don’t know. Or stay at Cal; I think they might want me. I have connections at Yale. Former professors who swear they would kill for me. I’ve made a good impression.” She spoke wistfully, as if she were not quite sure it was all true. “Of course, I don’t know everything. I have studied myself to the point that I know the extent of my ignorance.”
    Paul knew about ignorance. He seemed to suffer from it most of the time. He suffered from it now, not knowing what to say to the woman he suddenly loved more than ever.
    â€œI have never thought in terms of marriage. I have given myself over to becoming a scholar, as if I were becoming a nun.”
    â€œYou’ve scarcely been celibate,” Paul murmured.
    â€œIf I misled you, I’m sorry.” She shook, weeping. “I don’t want to hurt you, Paul. I just can’t say yes.”
    Paul ground his forehead into the steering wheel, wishing that its hard, cold strength could help him. “I don’t want to hurt your career. Our marriage would not do the slightest little harm to your profession. You could go on learning, and we can move anywhere. I’m sick of my