Well, he had his room, and I had mine. That’s important, I think, that you each have your own space. Someplace that you can call your own and not worry about someone else coming in and … and tidying up, or worrying about what they think about, or, or, or anything like that. I wouldn’t want him coming in my room, not that there’s anything in there he couldn’t or shouldn’t see, mind you, just that it’s my space and it’s nice that I can go there and get away from everything, including him. After 40 years — well, almost 40 years, 40 years not this year but the year after next. Almost 40 years. After 40 years, you know, I mean, we still love each other, of course we still love each other, but there’s not the same need to be always together. There’s not much in my room. I guess there’s a bookshelf with my books on it, not the books you see in the living room but my, ah, indulgences. Oh, you know, nothing smutty or anything, but not, uh, not the books I’m proud of having. You know the kind, all time-traveling Vikings and impossibly helpless women, lots of murders and storms and that sort of thing. Plus all my craft stuff, my paper monsters and automata, my binding supplies… all that kind of a thing. It’s messy, and I hardly ever do anything with all of it, but, you know… it’s mine. It’s my space.

All of which is kind of a roundabout way of saying that, no, I’ve never been in his room. Or, at least, not until y’all came in and wanted to take a look at it. It was his room, and he’s as deserving of privacy as I am. I guess I’ve been a little curious, but, you know, only a little. I figured, heck, probably it’s a lot like mine, except maybe with a few more of those girly magazines, and that’s just fine. I don’t mind that. No, I had no idea! I wish I had, or maybe not — you’d think there’d be a smell, though, wouldn’t you? Or something? All those poor girls… I guess it just goes to show, you never know someone. Oh, my poor Harold…