Beneath the blanket, I nudge Mary with my elbow to let her know I'm still here. She recoils, inches toward the sofa. No, her body language tells me. Stay still.
        The album finishes, and Ella falls silent. The darkness around me feels suddenly hollow. I cock my head and listen for the sounds of the gunmen.
        Nothing.
        Where are they? I whisper to Mary.
        She doesn't answer.
        There's wisdom in her silence; I know this. But something inside me feels wrong.
        A little while later I hear shuffling sounds from the middle of the room, near the spot where Mark and Anita lie. Then soft voices. I don't move. A thin creaking noise (the screen door?), followed a moment later by soft plodding sounds . . . rising. Footsteps climbing the stairs outside. Then more creaking noises, this time from the ceiling directly above us. When the noises stop, I listen and wait.
        Finally, another creak, another set of footsteps climbing the stairs, more noises from the apartment above.
        Now the only sounds I hear are the slow, muffled drafts of Mary breathing beneath the blanket. When I press my ear to the floor, I can feel the lub dub of her heart. And I wonder: Has our life come down to only this? Are we going to finish it right here, tonight?
        And all at once the me-that-is-now, twenty-something years later, listening to Phil's soft starlit voice tell the tale to my new bride who is younger than the story, this me wants to reach out and yank the blanket off Mary and the old me, and scream at the two of us: Wake up! You're blowing it! Proximity means nothing. You're letting yourselves drift away from each other. It's not too late if you just WAKE UP!”
        But the me-that-is-now cannot be heard by the couple lying on the floor of Mark's apartment.
        So I ask the me-that-is-now a question: Were we already finished, Mary and I, the night of the Elephant Gang? When Ella stopped singing, was the dance over?
        And the me-that-is-now is forced to answer:
        No. Not by a long shot. In this life, the music never stops. Not even when the partners change. There are always new lives to live. Children to raise. A week after Sheyene and I return from our honeymoon, my oldest son will move into a dorm. The following week, my second son will buy a red 1971 Super Beetle. A month after that, a middle school bully will hit my third son in the stomach in gym, but he will not cry. Sometime, 15 or 20 years from now, my only daughter will marry a nice, well-meaning young man whom Mary and I will both dutifully accept, but secretly believe is not good enough for her. The music has been carrying us toward these things our whole lives, no matter how uncoordinated our steps.

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