Chapter 19
Dax
“Ilike your skirt,” I say. Even though she’s been wearing it all day. Even though I haven’t said hi yet. Because the fact that Libby is standing in my kitchen looking straight up gorgeous after being paraded around my house by my two unapologetically loving daughters is…a lot.
“Thanks, I got it at a flea market,” she says before her cheeks flush.
And I smile. Because here we are, getting ready to eat mac and cheese, and we are both saying the first things that come to mind and we sound like idiots.
“Dad! The mac and cheese!” Delilah whines and I remember in that moment that I am still holding it.
“Oh, right, of course.”
I set the Pyrex down on the trivets in the middle of the table.
“It smells delicious,” Libby says, making her way over. She looks down at it. “Oh. It looks amazing too. Adult mac and cheese?”
“The BEST mac and cheese,” Poppy corrects her.
I shove my hands in my back pockets for a moment, strangely struggling to understand how conversation works all of a sudden. “It’s literally just pasta, butter, flour, milk, cream, and a couple types of cheeses. Oh and breadcrumbs for a little crunch,” I say.
“I love a little crunch,” she smiles, crinkling her nose at the girls as she does.
Somehow she has managed to make even the word crunch sexy. And that’s when I realize– I’m going to need a drink.
I move to one of the chairs and pull it out. “Sit, please.”
“Thank you,” she says and just like that, there’s static in the air.
After that, for the sake of proximity, I move to the kitchen. “Would you like some wine?” I ask.
“Wine and mac and cheese?” Poppy asks. “Weird.”
But Libby only laughs. “I’d love some.”
“We also have rolls and salad,” Delilah shows Libby.
“It all looks so good. I love this.”
“Do you really?” Poppy asks and I look away from my wine pouring for a moment. “A lot of grownups would probably think that mac and cheese is a silly meal.”
“Well, I think that’s simply ridiculous,” she states.
Both the girls giggle and I smile, topping the second glass with chardonnay.
Does white wine go with mac and cheese? Should it be red?
Does wine even go with mac and cheese? I do know one thing it goes with.
My nerves. “There is nothing silly about homemade mac and cheese.”
I smile again, my nerves mellowing a little just from her words and I have to admit– Libby has an odd way of doing that.
When she’s not showing teeth at work as a retaliation to our…
business differences– her personality is actually quite infectious.
I noticed it on our first date and it’s very prominent right now as she sits at my dining room table with my daughters, spooning fresh baked mac and cheese onto plates.
After that, the conversation is easy. The girls talk about what they’re doing at school (mostly the art and lunch and recess bits because obviously those are the most important) and how they think she should be a teacher there.
“I don’t know if I would make a very good teacher,” she says and even I stop chewing.
“What are you talking about?” Delilah bursts out. “You’d be, like, the best teacher.”
“I second that,” Poppy says.
“And I third it,” I say, popping another bite in my mouth.
“Really?” she asks, taking another bite too.
“Yes, it’s an anonymous vote,” Poppy says.
“Unanimous vote,” Delilah corrects her.
“And why is it unanimous?” she asks.
“Because you love kids and books and you're nice and you have great clothes,” Poppy states before taking a giant bite of a buttered roll.
“There you go,” I half shrug with a smirk.
“Okay but here’s the thing,” she smiles too, setting her fork down and clasping her hands together.
“I love kids. I do. And I think your school is wonderful. And I have thought about being a teacher before. But I love my shop. I love that all the kids I get to be around are kids that also love books. Because as crazy as this may sound, a lot of kids don’t care about books. ”
“Like Dennis,” Poppy says.
“Who is Dennis?” Delilah asks, stabbing a noodle with her fork.
“He’s in my class. He uses pages of books as tissues…without ripping them out.”
Delilah stops. “He just blows his nose in the books?”
“And closes them and puts them back,” Poppy says.
“Can we not talk about nose blowing at the table?” I ask.
Libby snorts out a laugh and covers her mouth with a napkin. “But that is what I am talking about. At my shop, everyone that comes in loves books. It’s just…nice. No whiny kids or nose blowers or anything else. Well, except for Tom. But that’s seasonal allergies and he uses hankies.”
The girls smile and so do I.
After dinner, the girls want to go back to the book nook for a story before bed. We do it every night so I can’t really say no. I do, however, refill our wine glasses before we make our way down.
“So, the space is kind of tight,” I explain as we walk. “The door anyways. It’s literally an under the stairs storage space. But once you get inside, it’s roomie. But you totally don’t have to go in if you don’t want–”
“I love this,” she cuts me off, crawling inside. Libby sits in the middle of the floor on a paisley-colored pillow, her legs folded neatly to the side since she is wearing a skirt and toenails painted teal and her eyes sparkling as much as the fairy lights. “I really, really love this.”
“Thanks, we decorated it ourselves,” Poppy says.
“With our mom,” Delilah adds, and I feel a dart prick my heart right in the middle. Bullseye, every time.
But Libby’s expression doesn’t change. “She had a very good eye for the fun and lovely things in life I feel,”
“She did,” I say, my throat tighter than I expected it to be. I take a swig of wine and then set it on a small table off to the side next to a flower shaped lamp.
“So, which book are we reading tonight? Because bedtime is fast approaching,” I say.
“I want to do the one about the zoo where all the animals get out of the cages and walk around at night when the zookeepers are sleeping.”
“Our Zoo’s a Circus!” Libby beams as I pull the book off the shelf.
“You know it?” I ask.
She gives me a snarky look and for some reason, in this context, it doesn’t annoy me. Instead, my lips screw into a smile as I wait for what she’s about to say.
“I own a bookstore. That sells children’s books,” she says and a chuckle.
“Yes you do.” But then it hits me. I bought that store.
And she won’t own it much longer. And her kids’ corner that people love so much is soon to be no more.
I knock the thought out of my brain for the time being and clear my throat, handing her the book.
“Then it only makes sense for you to read the book.”
She reaches out but before taking it from me, Libby stops.
“No daddy, I want you to read it!” Poppy whines.
“Yeah, dad, you do read this one the best.”
I shake my head. “Oh, no. I don’t think I can read it better than Miss Libby. She’s a professional.”
“Daddy!”
Libby smiles. “I think you should,” she says and since I am outnumbered, three girls to me, that I have no choice.
And so, I read. I read the way I only read for the girls, in the safety and privacy of our book nook.
Everyone, Libby included, is enthralled in the story we have heard a hundred times over.
A story of animals pretending to be asleep before sneaking out of their cages with hidden keys they all keep in their habitats.
They join in the middle of the zoo, under the stars and conduct a circus.
A circus only for them, in their own little world, where the magic is for them and them alone.
After it’s finished, I kiss the girls and tell them it’s time for bed. Both of them insist on hugging Libby, who squeezes them tightly back.
“You should come over for dinner again!” Poppy says. “We are having pigs in a blanket next kid food night.”
“That sounds lovely,” Libby says.
The girls blow kisses, and I blow them back. Delilah’s eyes study me for a moment and then she disappears, and I let out a sigh and a smile.
“They’re something else,” I say, leaning back, taking a sip of wine.
“They’re adorable. And they look just like you.”
“I don’t think so,” I shake my head. “They get all their good looks from their mother.”
There’s a bubble in the air between us at the mention of her and I realize why I haven’t gotten close to anyone since Tess died. Because the space is hard to fill.
“You could have told me,” she says. “About your wife. About the girls too.”
I stare forward, picking up a squishy toy off the floor and squeezing it in my palm. “I just like to keep things…separate. You know?”
“Because it hurts?”
“That. And it’s messy. Living your life as though the mother of your children didn’t die after the mother of your children did in fact die is very, very messy. If it had been up to me and my grief, I would have gotten rid of anything and everything that reminded me of her.”
“That’s terrible,” she says.
“It is. But that whole stages of grief thing…I hung out in the anger stage for a long, long…long time,” I admit, taking another generous sip of my wine.
“I get that. I mean, I’ve never lost a partner. But I have been divorced. Not that that is like this. At all. Wow…”
I can’t help but smile and I touch her leg reassuringly. “No, I understand how terrible that can be too.”
“He was…not a good guy. And when we split, I went through all the stages. Anger was some of the worst of times…but also the best. I smashed a wall plaque over a picket fence.”
“You smashed a wall plaque over a picket fence?” I echo.
“I did.”
“What did it say?”
“Soulmates,” she says. “It hung over our bed. And after he slept with someone else…someone who, and I quote, ‘had a tighter vagina and a tighter…everything else,’ I just took it out back so I could throw it in the dumpster, and I did. But first, I smashed it over the fence.”
“Did it break?” I ask.
“Hell yeah!” she lets out.
“Well then hell yeah. Did it feel good?”
“Also, hell yeah,” she says. “Well. Except for the part where the frame cut my hand open and I had to get thirteen stitches.”
“Wait what?” I ask, sitting up. “Let me see.”
She holds out her hand, and I take it. “Right there. A scar for life to remind me of my scar of a marriage. I was getting my hand stitched up, without proper anesthetics mind you, while he was out fucking a twenty-three-year-old blonde girl from NYU.”
“What?” I ask, her hand still in mine.
“Yeah,” Libby is smiling but it’s not real.
“That’s terrible.”
“Yeah,” she says, taking a sip of wine and finishing her glass. “It is.”
“He sounds terrible,” I say, my eyes on hers even though she is still staring down at her empty glass.
“Yeah. He was. But Tess wasn’t,” she looks up at me.
“No. She wasn’t,” I agree.
There’s a beat. And then, Libby turns to face me, her knees brushing my leg. And even through my jeans, I can feel the warmth. “I haven’t lost a spouse. But I do understand grief.”
I mentally kick myself. Because I do know what she’s talking about, thanks to random conversations I’ve had with Kai. “Your parents. Of course.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s why the store means so much to me. It’s all I have left of them. Kai has never understood it,”
“He only talks about them when he’s drunk.”
“Yeah. We cope differently I suppose.”
Another beat. And then,
“I think you’re doing great, Dax. This side of you is…you’re a great dad. I mean that. They miss her but they’re not missing out on anything.”
And with that, she leans in and kisses me. It’s only a peck and it’s completely unexpected, like a shooting star. There…bright…and gone.
My smile fades and the heat lingers. Our mouths are close enough for another kiss. And I want it. Sitting here, with her, in the fairy lights and the books, her cheeks flushed from wine and her eyes wild and her lips soft and pink and warm…I want it. I want her.
So, I go for it. Slowly, I lean in and her chin tilts upwards. But just before our lips touch, the moment is broken.
“Dad,” Delilah’s voice comes from the small door, and I don’t know how long she’s been standing there.
“Yes?” I ask, pulling back and turning towards my daughter.
After a moment she answers. “Poppy is crying because she can’t find Isaac.”
“Isaac?” Libby asks.
“He’s a giraffe," Delilah says.
“A stuffed giraffe," I explain with a groan as I crawl out of the nook. Libby follows, gathering her things as I help Poppy hunt for Isaac, trying to breathe normally as I replay everything that just happened and some of the things that didn’t.
Fifteen minutes later, the girls are in bed, and I am walking Libby to her car. “So, did you find Isaac?” she asks. Our pace is slow.
“I did. He was in the laundry room because I had to wash him earlier.”
“Ah, that makes sense. So, I take it Isaac goes everywhere?”
“With a capital E,” I say as we stop next to her car.
“And now Isaac is clean and ready for bed. See? You got this. Mac and cheese and book nook and Isaac and all–”
“Hey,” I cut her off and her smile fades.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” she asks.
“Everything. All of it. You’re great with them. Truly. And I just…”
I don’t know what else to add to that. There aren’t words that can possibly say all of the things that are buzzing around in my chest right now. So, I stop talking.
I stop talking and I kiss her.
It’s not a peck. It’s not quick or impulsive or anything else. It’s deep, intentional, slow, long, hot, and perfect.
When we finally pull away it’s only because we both need air.
And for a moment, I consider doing it again.
But I don’t. I want to leave that kiss right where it is, perfect and incomparable.
I open the creaky little door of her Miata and bite back a smile as she gets in.
And then I watch as she drives away. Then I breathe in the night air and let it out slow and hard.
She’s the first woman who I’ve let into my home since Tess died.
She’s the first woman I’ve let in…at all.
And I’m not sure how to feel about that.
I’m going to need another glass of wine to figure it out.