Tentative as if she too might vanish, he reaches out to touch her hair, to pull his fingers through it to loosen it further, to move his hand on and let it rest in the warm hollow of her back. Her two hands have till then been placed soft and flat upon her swollen belly but she moves one now and takes in it the hand that he has free, and without a word pulls it to her belly, beside her own, so that he too through the pads of his fingers and palm can feel the movement of the baby within. The lights flare again, tongues of flame that writhe and lick the heights of the sky, then melt away, and in the moonlight she is no longer there.