Some nights are sleepless and Opal lies awake in the spacious bed in Steven's bedroom, tossing and turning. Nighttime lighting in his home is always minimal, especially in the sleeping chambers (too much artificial light leaves him restless, or so he says) but her eyes adjust sooner or later, and she's already familiar with every one of its corners anyway. There’s not much to do besides watch him sleep peacefully besides her, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm.
Most of these nights, she rises quietly from the soft confines of the bed and sits by the plush, spacious alcove across it, looking out to sea from the broad windows and losing herself in her thoughts.
Opal often thinks of all the ships out there and wonders if there are currently any within close proximity to where they are. A seaport with no lighthouse to guide wayward ships–what a city she lives in.
"If I worked in the government," she told Steven one day before they went to work, "I'd relocate the funds for the Space Centre into building a lighthouse. We're the fourth largest city in the region and we've got the largest seaport! I don't think we need another installation of moon rocks."
"Meteoroids, dearest," Steven corrected her, fishing for his glasses, "And we're researching them, and we've even found traces of proteinoid substances in them. Don't you think that's interesting? We're so close to finding out if there's life somewhere out there!"
"Yes," she answered, "though I'm not sure how I feel about other life forms."
"I thought you loved living things."
"I do."
"Well, if we find something. I'll bring it home so you can properly dissect it."
"I'm a marine biologist, not a vivisectionist. And you haven't responded to my lighthouse statement."
Some nights when there's rough rain outside, Opal whispers a prayer for the safety of all the sailors at sea: that they are granted strength and courage to plant their feet firmly on the decks of their ships, that they be spared from great crashing waves, that the winds blowing on their sails guide them to safety instead of impending doom.
Some nights these thoughts make her feel incredibly lonely and she wishes that Steven would wake up and sit with her in the alcove until they both fall asleep by the window, in each other's arms, but most of these nights she never makes any effort to wake him.
Some nights, however, she's bolder, and in the middle of the night Steven stirs from his sleep hearing music, muted and soft; as if it were very far away. He's disoriented, the sleep still heavy on his eyes, and initially confused when he notices the absence of Opal on the bed besides him; but that fades away when he sees the bedroom door open a crack, letting in a beam of warm light from the hallway.
He always finds her in his study. The antique brass gramophone plays a jazz song he loves, and she's sitting at his desk, eyes closed, humming to it. She's in her bedclothes and her hair is a mess, but these nights he thinks she looks the most beautiful. So he takes her in his arms and presses his forehead to hers, swaying along to the soft beat.
"When you turn forty-six," Steven murmured sleepily into Opal's ears one of these nights, arms around her waist, face in the crook of her neck and words all slurred together, "I'll buy you a plot of land by the sea and build you a lighthouse that's taller than the Space Centre. And then if you want, we'll have huge aquariums built into every wall, just like in that dream you had. And then we'll have a special room with jellyfish aquariums, and that will be your own study, and then every night I'll dance with you like this."
"That's going to cost a lot, even for you. I don't think we can afford that."
"Oh, you'll see. You'll see."
"Why forty-six?"
"I don't know. It just feels right."
"Will we still even be together then?"
"Even if we aren't. I'd still build it. Then. Then..."
These nights, time and space between the two dissolve, and they're only brought back into reality when the hallway clock chimes three in the morning. But these nights, Opal cares very little about time or space, and so does Steven. No, nothing else in the world matters but the two of them, slowly dancing into the early morning light.
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