The steam rising from the pot of boiling water made her husband dance. From its place just below the opening of the partition between the kitchen and the living room, the pot bubbled a merry tune, and the figure of Michael as he bent to make faces at Annabelle was hazy. From this vantage you can almost mistake Michael for his brother Max, the two looked so alike. Both were finely built, the same wide shoulders and strong back. Was that even Michael and not Max? Maria leant sideways to make sure. After all, Max had been too often around, especially after he married her friend Liz and moved in next door. It was easy to get a little confused. Even their complexion did not vary too much.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that you're not dying inside."

She stiffened at the sound of his voice. It rushed over her, and she closed her eyes briefly before bending down to fix the bed. Quietly, she took a pillow and fluffed it.

Methodically, Maria folded the blanket and straightened the sheets. She felt his eyes boring at her back, but she did not look at him. Instead, she picked up items of clothing on the floor and put them in the laundry basket.

"You can't do it, can you?" he demanded.

She took deep calming breaths. With the basket under one arm, she approached him. Maria waited for him to move aside, allow her space to pass through. "I need to get these washed," she murmured. But he won't move.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Why can't you be brave enough to accept it?" Suddenly, he grabbed her upper arms. The basket fell down with her surprised cry. "We've been skirting this for so long. You can't deny it any longer!"

She refused to meet his gaze. "Let me go," she whispered. Regaining control, he gently took his hands off her. Maria knelt down and started picking up the clothes and putting them back in the basket. A few seconds later, he too was on his knees, helping gather the discarded items. He did not pursue the topic. If there was anything he hated doing, it was upsetting her. "It's not always that easy." He looked up and saw that her eyes regarded him sadly. "This is killing me."

"It's not our fault," he told her. "We fought it every step of that way but it's useless to fight any longer. I'm in love with you." She blinked against the stinging pain in her eyes, and tears rained down the floor. He caught one with his finger and brought it to his lips. "I hate seeing you cry."

She stood up with the basket in her hands. He followed suit and took the container from her. "But the only thing that can make me smile are tears from the ones I love."

He drew her to him and held on tightly. Had he any comforting words, he would have said it. As it was, all he had to give was himself. "I'll take these down for you."

Annabelle's gurgling turned into furious screaming right on time. Michael's voice floated to her ears, the way the cries for help of drowning people would suddenly pierce your consciousness. "What happened to that delightful little girl I had in the crib?" she heard him say. "Whose is this hissing, spitting little creature?" Maria looked up and grinned at the sight of her husband handling the kicking, squirming bundle. "I'm not liable if I drop the product!"

"Oh you stop that, Michael!" she ordered lightly. "Be careful. We can't just take her back to the hospital for replacement." The feeding bottle was turned upside down in the cupboard. She reached for it and wiped the rim with a fresh towel. "You knew she'd act up at this hour." Maria put on the thick gloves and poured boiling water into the bottle until it was half full. "Hold on."

She measured milk from the can of formula that Annabelle's pediatrician had prescribed. And then she added some warm water. She replaced the cap of the bottle and held her finger tight over the nipple to shake. Maria tasted the milk. "I need some more water in this. Just do the jiggly walk with her for a while."

Maria didn't thank him. Instead, she squeezed by him with an expressionless face. She heard him suck his breath at that exact moment when their bodies mashed together so completely, so tightly. Her blood pumped in her temples then, and her heightened awareness of her entire body blackened her sight. They were pressed together only for that millisecond, but it was enough to send her temperature to fever pitch, to suck the strength from her limbs. She stumbled free and picked her head up high. She licked her lips and proceeded downstairs as though nothing had happened, her cheeks burning all the while with the memory of that nonentity.

He followed her. She knew he did. She felt him close by, a constant presence from the bedroom to the laundry. How many times were they to do this? Had they been animals this would have been resolved long ago. And perhaps after that it would have been over. And they would put it far behind them. But denying it, and seeing each other every day, left alone in the house, merely fanned the flamed burning inside them until it reached their hearts.

"You're an angel. I would not have remained this strong without you to smile at me every day."

That made her whip around to face him with burning eyes. Maria stepped closer to him, face stretched tight with fury. "You cannot say that!" she cried, jabbing her finger into his chest. "Do not give me credit due to someone else. It's not fair. It's just not!"

He caught her wrist and drew her to him tightly. The basket fell unnoticed onto the floor, once again scattered like so much fallen leaves. "I can say it. Because it's true!"

"She loves you," Maria whispered.

"He loves you," he countered. "But that doesn't keep me from feeling the same about you. And that doesn't keep you from loving me."

"I-" she gasped, "I don't."

"Don't lie," he whispered softly into her ear.

"I don't." Maria started to pull away, but he had both her wrists in his hands. "Let go."

"Don't you think I've tried? I'm not that much of a monster that I would not fight this when I had to." He let go of her wrists and caught her waist, pulling the entire length of her body against his.

She twisted against him, but he held on, matching the struggle of her body with his own rhythmic movements. "Stop it. You'll hurt yourself!"

She moaned through her tears. "Let me go. Please."

"I can't." Her movements slowed, but still he held on. When finally her movements ceased, she just leaned limply against him in silence, defeated. "Sorry." She buried her face in his chest and began to sob softly.

He started to pull away. His heart bled when she cried. But she held on to him tightly, not wanting to let him go. "Maria," he began.

She pulled him down, and hungrily he took her lips. Tears seeped out of her closed eyelids as she drank in the taste of him. The starvation they felt for each other was unlike anything he had ever felt. Where once he expressed his love in a wild, almost animalistic ravaging, he fed his hunger this time with slow, needy kisses. His tongue meeting hers sent an electric surge through his veins. Instead of the rough plunging he had been used to, theirs melded together in a no less tumultuous way. It was a fierce kiss, but not brutal, ardent, yet calm.

"Why do I need to love you?" she demanded when they were staring at each other, gasping in the aftermath.

"I don't know."

"What do we do now? We can't go back to the way it was. Not after this." She met his eyes and waited for his response.

"Leave with me."

"What?"

"Leave with me, Ria. I can't think of any way I will survive not being with you after this. Will you?"

Her hand rose to cup his cheek, and he immediately turned his face to kiss her palm. She knew that this was insanity. But the past months have been too much for her. Although she was aware that they would be cursed forever for what they were about to do. Love is love, no matter the encumbrances that was strung along. Love is love, no matter how painful. Love is love, no matter how many hearts you had to crush in its pursuit.

The baby was screaming loudly, and Michael asked her to hurry. She opened the bottle and picked up the pot. "Aaah!" she cried in pain. The pot dropped from her hands and knocked over the bottle, spilling boiling hot water onto the sink and on the floor. Her hands were sore burning red. Fortunately she was able to back away at once, keeping herself from further injuries.

Michael strode to the doorway of the kitchen and looked down on the mess. Annabelle was yelling her heart out from hunger and the noise. He rocked the child and murmured soothing sounds into her ear. Tears rose into her eyes as they traveled from the spilled milk to the overturned pot to her husband carrying their daughter. His image was faint before her. The tears and the hot steam rising from all around them made him hazy.

"I'm sorry!" sobbed Maria. His brows furrowed in concern. He started to approach her, but she held up her hands to ward him off. "No! Don't come here. It's too hot. Take the baby back to the living room!"

They went into the bedroom. He reached for the suitcase at the top of the closet and laid it open on the bed. She threw clothes inside, not even looking at what they were. When it was full, he grabbed it and started out.

"Wait! I need shoes." Maria pushed the boxes away at the bottom. Some thudded on top of the box that held her wedding dress. And then she was able to fish two pairs that they stuffed into the suitcase.

She held her hand out to his, palm up, and he took it, firmly closing warm hand around it. He picked up the suitcase with his other hand and they climbed down the stairs and exited the house. The car was parked out front. They crossed the street and stood beside it. "I need to go get the keys," she said faintly.

"I'll get them."

"No, let me." She squeezed his hand and turned to go. He watched her run up the steps and vanish into the house.

Long moments later, she still had not emerged from the house. He left the suitcase by the car and went in after her. "Ria," he said softly. She was not in the living room. He strode to the stairs and called her name, but there was no answer. He went into the kitchen but did not see her there.

He heard the quiet sobbing and he found her sitting on the floor of the kitchen, the cordless phone lying beside her. Her entire body poised as though it were an asp out to strike her. "Ria," he repeated very quietly.

She looked up at him with liquid eyes and pale, pale lips. "I can't go."

"Why?" he asked softly.

Tears rained down from her eyes. The clock ticked slowly, seeming to mock as it rhythmically reminded them that time was running out. She wet her lips. He was standing there, his back leaning against the doorframe. And she smiled though the paths of her tears ran by her lips. "Max, you're going to be an uncle."

His head fell back onto the doorframe. He looked at her unblinking, his breathing steady. "I love you."

She turned her face away.

"Don't cry, Maria," he softly uttered, in a voice as soothing as the one he used on Annabelle. "It wasn't your fault. You just got burned."

Maria's shoulder convulsed with her sobbing. She held her hands tight over her face and cried into them. She slid down and folded into herself as her grief shook her entire body.

"I love you," came his soft voice. Maria muffled her wailing with her hands and rocked herself in the corner.

"It's nothing." She looked up at him leaning against the doorframe with Annabelle over his shoulder. The water on the floor was starting to cool and the air was beginning to clear.

END