26. Heidi
HEIDI
The kiss from the night before stays with me.
The next morning, I touch my mouth while reading an email and lose the sentence twice.
Beau went rigid when I reached for him, then his mouth turned hungry when I gave him permission to answer. I can still feel the exact pressure of his hand at my waist.
It is also the instant I saw him holding Celeste.
Both images use the same body. I cannot separate the husband I want from the man who left.
By lunchtime, desire has become irritation. By the time I collect Ivy, I am angry that Beau can still make my body feel like a place I want to live.
Mom watches me put the same clean cup into two different cupboards.
“Are we reorganizing?” she asks.
“Apparently.”
“Should I hide the benches?”
I laugh despite myself. “Beau is coming at six.”
She nods as if that explains the cups. It does.
When Beau arrives at our house for his evening with Ivy, Mom waits while I settle the baby after her feed.
“You don't have to disappear,” I tell her.
“I am going to give Ivy a bath.”
“She had one yesterday.”
“Then we will discuss skin-care restraint.”
Mom kisses my forehead and carries the baby away. I hear her begin a cheerful monologue before she reaches the stairs.
Beau sits at the far end of the sofa.
“You can still decide you only want me here for Ivy,” he says.
“If I decide that, I'll tell you.”
He nods.
The carefulness that protected me last night now feels unbearable.
“I want you,” I say. “That does not mean you are coming home.”
“I understand.”
“It does not mean I have finished being angry.”
“I know.”
“Stop proving you can agree and kiss me.”
For one beat, he only looks at me.
“Are you sure?”
“About kissing you? Yes.”
“About anything after that?”
“I will tell you.”
I move closer until my knees touch his.
“I need you to listen if the answer changes.”
“I will.”
“And I need you to believe the yes while it is yes.”
Something hungry and wounded moves across his face.
“I believe you.”
I turn toward him and climb into his lap. His mouth meets mine with enough hunger to answer every careful week between us. I pull him closer by his shirt. He waits when my body hesitates, then follows when I settle my knees around his hips.
I lead his hand beneath my clothes. The first touch makes me gasp. I have missed his strength, his attention, and the exact pressure his fingers learn again as I guide him. He watches my face instead of assuming memory gives him rights over a body changed by pregnancy and birth.
“There,” I whisper.
He keeps the rhythm steady. Pleasure gathers until I stop measuring what it means and let myself want the man I married. When I come, I hold his wrist and say his name against his mouth.
The first tear slips into my hair.
I am not sorry.
Beau starts to move away.
“Don't.”
He stops. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to stop touching you?”
“No.” I catch his shirt and pull him close enough to put my face against his neck. “I don't know where to put all of it.”
His arms come around me without tightening.
“You don't have to put it anywhere tonight.”
I breathe in the familiar scent of his skin.
“Say that you know this doesn't fix us,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“Say you wanted me anyway.”
His mouth touches my temple. “I wanted you every second.”
That is the sentence that lets me lift my face and kiss him again.
Beau stays beside me. He does not ask whether the sex changes my answer about home.
His thumb moves once over my shoulder, then stills.
“I missed you,” I say into his neck.
My hands shake harder now than they did after the pleasure.
“I missed you too.”
“I don't want that to be evidence.”
“Of what?”
“That I should take you back. That I have already decided.”
“It isn't.”
I lift my head. “What is it, then?”
His eyes are wet.
“Something true you trusted me enough to say.”
I kiss him because the answer is right and because I want his mouth. He lets me decide how long it lasts.
When we separate, I slide from his lap and lie beside him with my hand over his heartbeat. It remains fast beneath my palm.
When my breathing settles, I touch the hard line of him through his trousers. He catches my hand gently.
“You don't owe me symmetry.”
“I know.” I open his belt because I choose to. “This isn't payment.”
I take him in my hand and watch restraint leave his face. He comes with his forehead against mine, quiet because our daughter is upstairs.
Afterward we clean up and sit together until Mom brings Ivy down. Beau leaves at the agreed time.