The Art of Racing in the Rain. Garth Stein

say. They’ll try to give her pills and she doesn’t want pills. And one evening after dinner, which was a special one, though I don’t remember if it was a birthday or an anniversary, Denny suddenly appeared naked in the bedroom and Eve was naked on the bed.

      It seemed so odd to me because they hadn’t mounted or even played with each other in such a long time. But there they were. He positioned himself over her and she said to him, “The field is fertile.”

      “You aren’t really, are you?” he asked.

      “Just say it,” she replied after a moment, her eyes having dimmed, having been sucked deep into their sockets and swallowed by the puffy skin, suggesting anything but fertility.

      “I embrace the fertility,” he said. But their exchange seemed weak and unenthusiastic. She made noise, but she was pretending, I could tell, because in the middle of it she looked at me and shook her head and waved me off. Respectfully, I withdrew to another room and drifted into a light sleep. And, if I recall correctly, I dreamed of the crows.