Slow Dance

Twenty-Four

Shiloh decided to take the kids to the grocery store while she had them in the car and they were sated.

“I didn’t sign up for all these errands, ” Junie said, like she’d heard someone say it that way on TV.

Gus fell asleep on the drive home, and Shiloh couldn’t decide whether to risk waking him by carrying him inside, or to sit

in the car with him and let him finish his nap. She opened the front door for Junie and moved the groceries to the porch.

As Shiloh was coming down the porch steps, Cary was walking up her sidewalk. She stopped in her tracks, genuinely surprised

to see him. “Hey...”

“I didn’t thank you,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

He shrugged. He still wasn’t wearing a coat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Shiloh came down from the last step. “You can always call me, you know—if you ever need help back here.”

Cary nodded his head. He looked away.

“This...” Shiloh said. “Last night...” She didn’t know how to say this. “It doesn’t nullify, from my perspective, the

fact that you could call me”—her eyes were suddenly full of tears—“if you ever needed help.”

Cary was looking up the road, toward his house. His hands were on his hips.

Shiloh wiped her eyes.

“I spent the whole morning arguing with her...” he said. He sounded almost wistful. “I’ve been trying to get access to

her bank account—she gives everybody money and then can’t pay her bills. I have to send her wires, like she’s in a foreign

country.” He ran his hand over his hair. “But she signed the papers at the bank just now.”

“That’s great,” Shiloh said.

“It’s a huge relief. We’re talking years of arguing about this... The guy at the bank might turn me in for elder abuse—I think he thought I was scamming her—but

I’m so relieved right now, I don’t even care.”

Shiloh nodded.

Cary glanced over at her. “You left your car door open.”

“Gus is still in there,” she said. “He’s asleep.”

“Oh.” He looked wrong-footed.

“I’m going to carry him in.”

“I can get him for you.”

“I’ll manage,” Shiloh said. Then she realized that accepting the offer would get Cary inside her house, at least for a few

minutes, and not walking away from her. “But... I guess if you don’t mind?”

Cary walked to the back seat. Shiloh met him there. “If he freaks out,” she said, “just hand him to me.”

Cary unbuckled Gus and smoothly transferred him to his arms. Gus stirred and lifted his head, making that panicked face kids

make when you move them while they’re sleeping. His arms and neck contracted. He whined. Then he settled on Cary’s shoulder,

relaxing again.

“Do you remember where my mom’s bedroom is?” Shiloh whispered.

Cary nodded.

She shut the car door and jogged ahead of them to open up the screen.

Cary walked straight through the living room and dining room, past Junie, into Shiloh’s mom’s room, and laid Gus down onto

the bed.

Shiloh patted Gus’s back. “It’s okay, Gus-Gus.”

He stayed asleep.

She and Cary walked out of the room and left the door ajar.

“Will he roll off the bed?” Cary asked.

Shiloh shook her head.

Junie was in the living room, playing with her toy kitchen. The living room had more toys than furniture. (And it had a lot of furniture.) “Cary,” Junie whispered, holding her hands to her cheeks. “You’re in my house .”

He frowned with his eyebrows, like he was just realizing that was true.

Shiloh took hold of the back of a dining room chair. “Do you...”

Cary looked at her.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” she asked.

He looked at her for another second, his expression flat.

Then he nodded.

Shiloh released the back of the chair.

“ I could make coffee,” Junie said.

“We’ll both make coffee.” Shiloh walked into the kitchen. To her relief, Cary followed.

She filled the coffeemaker with water. Shiloh never drank coffee this late in the day.

Cary stood near her without touching anything. “This room is different.”

“We’ve been redoing it piece by piece.” Shiloh had put in new red Formica countertops and painted the cabinets pale yellow.

She was saving up for new linoleum.

“You weren’t lying...” Cary said.

She looked up at him. She was scooping out the coffee grounds.

“Your kids are cute.”

Shiloh laughed, relaxing slightly. (Very slightly.) “Thanks. Sorry about Gus. He’s just... in a rough spot.”

“I don’t mind Gus,” Cary said.

Shiloh nodded. She felt tearful again. She dumped the coffee into the filter.

“They’re younger than I expected,” he said.

“Oh.” She shrugged. Closed the lid of the coffeemaker. Pressed the button.

“You must have had a difficult time of it,” he said. “Recently.”

“Huh,” Shiloh said, like a badly formed laugh. “Yeah.”

Junie came rushing into the kitchen with a plastic teacup. Shiloh held a finger over her mouth as a reminder. “Gus is asleep.”

“Here’s your coffee,” Junie stage-whispered to Cary. “Do you like sugar?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Good, ’cause there’s sugar in there.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you, Junie,” Shiloh said. “Give us some space to talk, okay?”

Junie’s face fell. She probably thought Shiloh and Cary were going to argue—that was the only time Shiloh and Ryan ever asked

for space. (Actually, she and Cary might be about to argue...)

Junie turned back to him—“Tell me if you need more sugar!”—then ran away.

Shiloh watched the real coffee dripping into the pot.

“Shiloh...” Cary said.

She looked up at him.

He was holding the toy cup like it was actually full of coffee. He seemed nervous. “It occurs to me that I wasn’t really considering

where you might be in life. When I...”

She waited.

“...asked you to dance.”

Shiloh nodded. A few tears spilled out.

“All I was really thinking about was myself,” he said. “And how it would feel to see you again.”

Her bottom lip was in her mouth. She bit it.

“I’m sorry,” Cary said.

“I’m sorry, too,” Shiloh replied, immediately. “I was...” She shook her head. “Wrong. Selfish. Bullheaded. Unfair, insensitive...”

She shook her head again and pressed her lips together, trying hard not to cry. She covered her eyes with her fingers.

Cary touched her upper arm.

She dropped her hands to look at him. His face was full of feelings, but Shiloh wasn’t sure which ones.

“You were only some of those things,” he said. “To varying degrees.”

She laughed—and gave up on trying not to cry. “Do you still want coffee? Or was that... I mean...”

“I want coffee,” he said.

Shiloh laughed again and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Good. Me too.” She reached for two mugs. “Do you really take sugar?”

“Yeah.”

“Cream?”

“If you have it.”

“I have it.”

She poured two mugs of coffee, then held one out to Cary. “Trade you.”

He looked down at his hand, like he’d forgotten about the toy cup, then smiled, passing it to her.

Shiloh’s sugar bowl was shaped like an apple. She pushed it in his direction and went to get the cream out of the fridge.

“Your mom’s a sweetheart,” she said.

Cary sighed.

Shiloh handed him the cream. “Who takes care of her when you’re not here?”

“Well...” His forehead creased. “She’s never alone. Angel’s living there now, with her kids.” He poured cream into his

coffee. Shiloh took the carton from him when he was done. “And Jackie”—that was Cary’s biological mom—“you know, she’s never

far. There was another woman staying over there for a while, a neighbor, maybe? I could never get to the bottom of it.”

Shiloh leaned a hip against the counter, picking up her own coffee. She blew on it, feeling the heat blow back onto her face.

Cary looked troubled. “It’s hard to say whether they’re taking care of Mom or whether she’s taking care of them. I know they

all take advantage of her...” He shook his head. “But if she’s getting her prescriptions and getting to her doctors’ appointments,

can I really complain?”

“It sounds like you worry about her a lot.”

He raised his eyebrows, as if that was an understatement. He was taking a sip of coffee. “I tried to get her out to California a few years ago...”

Shiloh watched him.

“She’ll never leave Omaha.”

“Almost no one does,” Shiloh said. “You’re an outlier.”

“I guess so. Even Mikey’s back. Part-time anyway...” Cary looked up at her. “Will you see him? He says you never see anybody.”

“He’s been all over the world,” Shiloh said, like that was her excuse.

“You should get together with Mikey,” Cary said.

She frowned. It wasn’t really Cary’s business. “Okay.”

“You can’t make new old friends...”

“Oh.” Shiloh laughed through her nose. “Well. Okay. Good advice. Thanks.” She drank some coffee. “Do you guys get together?

You and Mikey?”

“We try. He came to see me when I was stationed in Tokyo... I think he just wanted an excuse to go to Tokyo.”

“How long were you there?”

“Three years.”

“Where else have you been?”

Cary smiled a small smile. “Virginia. Florida. Canada. San Diego for a little while now.”

“Will you stay in San Diego?”

“They move me around every two or three years. I don’t really get to choose...”

“I guess that’s baked in, huh?”

“Yeah.” He smiled down at his coffee. “Not a whole lot of individual determination in the Navy.”

“But you choose to stay in, right?”

“I’m gonna stick it out until I can retire.”

Shiloh nodded.

Cary leaned back against the counter—in the L-shaped corner of it, so he was facing her. He took another drink of coffee.

Junie peeked her head into the kitchen. “Mommy. I’m so sorry, ” she whispered, slapping her forehead. “I forgot your coffee.”

“I was wondering...” Shiloh said.

Junie came in with a teacup. “Black. Just like you like it.”

Shiloh took the cup from her. “Thank you.”

“Would you like more coffee, Cary?” Junie asked.

“I’m good. Thank you.”

“Ring the bell for service!” she said, running out.

“ Shhhhh! ” Shiloh hissed after her.

“She really does look like you,” Cary said.

“Don’t tell her that. She’s desperate to look like her dad.”

“ Does she look like her dad? That doesn’t seem possible.”

“I don’t know. Kids are like water—you see other people’s faces pass over them. Sometimes she’ll smile at me, and I swear

she looks just like my mother.” Shiloh squinted at Cary. “You don’t... I mean, did you say? Do you? Have kids?”

“No.” Cary pulled his chin into his neck. “I mean.” He shook his head. “No.”

Shiloh laughed. “Sorry.”

“I’ve never been married,” he said.

She looked down at her coffee.

“ And I don’t have kids.”

Shiloh was still holding Junie’s coffee cup. She set it aside, with Cary’s. “Was that intentional?”

“I don’t think so...” He frowned. “Some people might say it was intentional.”

Shiloh could never raise just one eyebrow—but she made her version of that expression, peeking up at him.

“It just hasn’t gone that way,” he said.

“It still could. You’re only thirty-three.”

“In my prime hooking-up years.”

Shiloh rolled her eyes.

“We’ll see,” Cary said, more quietly.

She tried not to smile. “Is the problem that your life, your lover, your lady, is the sea?”

“You nailed it.”

She grinned at him. “That really sucks for you.”

He gestured at her with his mug. He was smiling, too. “I didn’t know that you wanted kids.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Well, I didn’t want them at eighteen. But then...” She shrugged. “I was married, I was settled

at my job—my fertility was waning. It felt like the next thing.”

“That sounds practical.”

“I didn’t want to miss out on a chance to make my life feel bigger,” Shiloh said. As soon as she said it, she winced. “What

a rude thing for me to say! I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t rude. It’s how you felt. Is that how you feel now—like they make your life feel bigger?”

“In some ways.” She tipped her head, considering. “I suppose I feel more invested in the world now...”

Cary was holding his mug to his mouth, but he wasn’t drinking. “You weren’t invested before?”

Shiloh shrugged again. “Eh. I felt like a short-timer before. You know, like I was doing my time, clocking in and out...”

“Clocking in and out of humanity.”

“Exactly,” she said. “But then I had kids, and now I worry a lot more about everything .”

He was still smiling, a little. “I remember you already worrying a lot about everything...”

“Really? In high school?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You made me join Amnesty International.”

“ Mikey made you join Amnesty International.”

“Mikey never made me do anything.” Cary pointed at her. “You told me that we had to write letters to the president of Chile

because we could . That if you were ever disappeared by the government, you’d like somebody, somewhere, to do what they were able to. Even if it was just

write a letter.”

“I don’t think those letters did any good,” Shiloh said.

He shook his head. “Almost assuredly not.”

“I don’t know...” she said. “Having kids rewrites your programming. You can’t really remember what the world looked like

to you before you had them.” Her voice dropped an octave. “That’s probably some biological imperative to make sure you don’t

leave them by the side of the road.”

One of Cary’s cheeks dimpled. “I’m not sure that’s an endorsement of parenthood...”

Shiloh laughed. “Me neither. Somebody should tell you beforehand that it’s more like being mind-captured than falling in love—they

take over your whole head, and that’s that. You don’t ever want anything as much as you want to make them happy.”

“It sounds like you’re doing a good job, Shiloh.”

“Ha!” she said. “I thought I’d introduced you to Gus...”

Cary held his head at an angle. He raised his shoulders, sympathetic. “I think ‘making your kids happy’ is more of a journey

than a binary proposition.”

“Like America’s journey toward justice.”

He laughed. “Yeah. Actually.”

She smiled down at her cup.

“I told my mom I’d come right back,” Cary said softly. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Shiloh looked up, shifting her weight away from the counter. “Well. Thanks for coming by. This was...” The tears

again. “This was really nice.”

“I could...” Cary was looking at her with his brows drawn low. Like he was puzzling something out. “We could do more of

this, later.”

Shiloh pulled her lips down at the ends, surprised. “Do you want to?” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “I mean. I’d love

that. I’d love to.”

“Yeah?”

Her eyes were open. “ Yes. Cary. Come back later?”

“Okay.” He smiled. “I will.”

“The kids go to bed at eight thirty. You can come before then, but it’s a whole thing.”

“I’ll come after.” He looked down at his coffee. “I’m going to be up all night anyway thanks to this coffee.”

“Oh my god.” Shiloh took his cup away. “Me too. I can’t have caffeine after noon.”

He was smiling. “I’ll be back.”