37. Avery #2
“Pull the tab toward the buckle while pressing here,” he reads, bracing one hand on the base. “It doesn’t say how hard.”
“Probably because the legal department refused to print rip it like you’re angry at your father.”
Declan gives the tab a firm pull, and the pad opens.
I want to grin at him before I remember I am not his wife congratulating him for fixing another stupid house problem.
We used to do this with me insulting the instructions while he took apart whatever I had made worse.
He would kiss my knee from the floor, I would bring him the wrong screwdriver on purpose, and an hour later the thing would work.
Remembering doesn’t make today safe, but it makes the distance between the couch and rug feel smaller than it is.
“The base goes in the car before the carrier locks into it,” I say, reaching for the diagram when he turns the page too far. “You skipped the vehicle angle.”
“I didn’t skip it. I moved it because your car has the lower anchors and the picture starts with a seat belt.”
“The angle changes before either installation. If you put the carrier in first, we can’t see the indicator.”
Declan points to the numbered circles with the screwdriver. “One says install. Two says adjust.”
“That is a warning label, not step one.” I lean forward, take the page, and rotate it toward him. “You have the Spanish side up.”
He looks at the heading, mutters, “Fuck me,” and turns it over. The carrier shifts beneath his forearm, the handle drops, and the release clamp closes across the side of his hand.
Declan swears so loudly the baby jumps. He jerks once, realizes pulling tightens it, and sits on my rug trapped by equipment meant for a person who will arrive smaller than the box it came in.
A laugh tears out of me before I can bury it.
It hurts my stomach and frightens me more than the nightmare did, because Declan looks up with the exact offended expression he wore when he stapled his sleeve to the dining chair three Christmases ago.
He starts laughing too, breathless and angry while he uses the screwdriver to lift the release. “You could help instead of enjoying this.”
“I told you the legal department expected tools.” I wipe tears from my face, one hand braced beneath my stomach while the baby keeps moving. “Don’t bleed on the padding. I can’t return it after you contaminate it.”
The clamp releases. Declan flexes his hand, and our laughter dies when we both hear how easily it came back.
He has never opened a cabinet in this living room, but I recognize the way he laughs until he cannot breathe, and I remember every stupid thing in the old house that we fixed this way.
For one minute, I forgot the affair, gunshot, divorce, and burned house while we fought a car seat.
I miss that minute before it is over, and missing it hurts. I shove myself upright from the couch.
Declan sets the screwdriver down and keeps both hands flat on the car-seat base. “Should I go?”
“I don’t know.” I walk to the kitchen island and keep my back to him while I fill a glass, resenting that he knows which cabinet holds it even though he has never opened one in this house.
“I called because I wanted you here. Then we laughed, and for a minute I wanted the life where that was normal.”
He stays on the rug with the pieces between us. “I wanted it too.”
“I miss you.” The words hurt worse spoken plainly, so I grip the glass and make myself turn around.
“I am furious that I miss you after everything. I miss telling you when something breaks. I miss hearing your truck and knowing I don’t have to check the camera.
I miss you eating the burned pancakes so I can have the good stack.
Then I remember you left our kitchen to go to her, and I hate myself for wanting any of it back. ”
Declan looks at the car seat instead of taking my confession as an invitation.
“I miss the right to be ordinary with you. I miss opening a jar without asking whether I can touch something in your house. I miss you yelling from another room because you know I’ll answer.
” He rubs the red line across his hand and lets it hurt in silence.
“I killed that right every time I went to Sasha and came home expecting ordinary life to wait for me. Missing it doesn’t give it back. ”
“No, it doesn’t.” I return to the couch because my back aches and because I don’t want to shout the truth across the room. “But I don’t know what to do with the fact that I can see you changing when nobody is forcing you.”
“You don’t have to do anything tonight.” Declan pulls the manual closer and finds the correct page. “You asked me to help with the seat. I can finish it, put it in your car, and leave. You can miss me tonight without promising me tomorrow.”
The answer is why I called him and why calling him feels dangerous. He has learned how to stop before my no, but part of me wants to see what happens if I offer another yes. I sit beside him on the rug with enough space between our knees that neither can mistake the movement for touch.
“Finish the base,” I say, handing him the manual. “Then I want to take it to the fitting station before we trust either of us.”
“Good.” Declan reads the next instruction aloud, and I follow the diagram while he works.
We argue twice more, both times in earnest, install the base in my back seat, and test the empty carrier until the indicator rests inside the correct band.
He leaves the screwdriver on the porch only until I remind him it is his, then carries it back to his truck without asking to see the nursery.
The next morning, the closing agent records the deed in my name.
I stand in my own kitchen with the new key in one hand when the crib delivery arrives early and leaves three long boxes across the nursery floor.
The assembly guide is taped beneath the heaviest one, visible but impossible for me to reach without moving the box.
I take a photograph and open Declan’s approved message thread. The message offers him one task, not the room, the house, or me. I have finally stopped punishing myself for wanting to send it.
The crib is here. You may come at six if you want to help me build it.