28. Heidi
HEIDI
Beau is wearing the mittens.
He stands outside the hardware store beneath a sign advertising key cutting, hands raised when he sees me as though he has come to surrender to a very particular police force.
“Your advantage,” he says.
“Substantial.”
“I'd like it recorded that I arrived already compromised.”
I laugh and take his arm before I think about whether I intended to. His elbow bends to make room for my hand. We walk into the warm store together.
I need coat hooks for the clinic. Children keep putting wet things on the chair meant for sitting quietly, and my colleague has threatened to put up a sign so stern it will require parental consent. Beau considers this a problem worthy of his professional attention.
The wall of hooks offers more choices than anyone should need to hang a coat.
“This one,” he says, taking down a large metal example.
“For a backpack or a fishing boat?”
“Children hang from things.”
“Children can turn anything into an athletic event. We don't have to encourage them.”
I choose one with a smooth rounded end. He tests it against his palm, then nods.
I look at him suspiciously.
“You're agreeing?”
“I'm versatile.”
“I came here for an argument.”
He glances down the aisle. “We can look at lamps.”
“Cruel man.”
The laugh follows us into the next aisle. I tuck the hooks into the basket and let him lead me toward a display of objects that are almost, but not quite, things anybody needs.
He picks up a drawer pull shaped like a branch.
“Thoughts?”
“Six sleeves injured before breakfast.”
“Very practical.”
“It's a drawer, Beau. It shouldn't have antlers.”
He puts it back, grinning. “I knew you'd have a position.”
“My position is that furniture shouldn't fight back.”
We keep walking. He has taken off the mittens and pushed them into his coat pocket, one flowered thumb sticking out. I like the sight of them there.
At the paint display, I stop in front of a strip of yellow samples.
“Too much?” I ask, holding one up.
“For what?”
“The clinic wall behind the chair. Someday. If the principal agrees.”
He takes the strip and looks at it under the light.
“This one will be brighter over a whole wall.”
“That's a tactful way of saying aggressive.”
“I'm growing.”
I put the strip back and choose a softer shade. He holds it beside my sleeve.
“That one looks like morning.”
I look at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing. I like that.”
His smile is small, unguarded. I take the sample and put it in my pocket.
Near the registers, a shelf of picture frames catches my eye.
I stop without meaning to. Small frames, large ones, white wood and dark metal, objects waiting to make an image part of a room.
I have photographs of Ivy on my phone. Hundreds now. Ivy asleep, Ivy protesting, Ivy with her mouth open in the hopeful beginning of a smile. Some with Beau. Some with Mom. One of Dash looking as though the baby has just told him something professionally damaging.
The first photographs are in a separate album. I saved the hospital photographer's email after we came home. I have opened the picture of me holding Ivy only a few times.
Each time, I have struggled to recognize myself as the woman holding her.
“Do you want one?” Beau asks.
I shake my head.
“Not today.”
He looks at the frames, then at me. He doesn't know which picture I am seeing. I am grateful he does not try to guess aloud.
We go to the register. I pay for the hooks, and we leave with a bag small enough to swing from one finger.
Outside, the cold has sharpened. The river path is lit, but I am tired enough to prefer the shorter street through the shops. I tell Beau, and we turn that way.
A window displays a row of extravagant hats. I point at one that appears to have been designed by a bird with access to credit.
“For you.”
“Does it come in floral?”
“You could wear it to a site inspection. Nobody would question your authority.”
“Nobody would remain on site.”
We stand laughing at the window until the woman inside glances up. I give her an apologetic smile. Beau puts on the mittens with great dignity, which ruins any chance of explaining ourselves.
When we reach the corner, he takes my hand.
He looks at me as he does it, and I turn my palm into his at once.
The wool is warm. The pressure of his hand is familiar enough to make my chest ache.
I think of the last time he reached for my hand in public. County Memorial. The lift after the café. I moved my hand to the rail because I could not bear to let him comfort me after defending Celeste.
Tonight, he asks nothing from the contact. He walks at my pace, flowered thumb resting against my knuckles.
“Are you all right?” he asks when I slow.
“Yes. Tired.”
“We can stop.”
“I know.”
That is why I keep walking.
At the next shop window, our reflections appear side by side. We look married. The sight no longer feels like a lie, but it is not simple either.
I squeeze his hand.
He squeezes back once.
We walk slowly. I tell him about the little girl who wants the clinic chair left in the same place. He tells me about a young carpenter who caught an error in a drawing and was so apologetic about being right that Beau had to make him say it again without the apology.
“Did you?” I ask.
“Eventually.”
“Perhaps he thought you might turn the house over.”
Beau groans. “I regret every story I've told you.”
“No, you don't.”
“No,” he says, looking at me. “I don't.”
At the cars, I put the bag on my seat and turn back to him.
He is standing close, his cheeks reddened by the cold, hair lifting above his forehead. There is a little silver at one temple I don't remember noticing before Ivy. I reach up and touch it.
“You're going to become distinguished,” I say.
“Against considerable resistance.”
“I'll do what I can to keep you humble.”
“I rely on it.”
I kiss him.
This kiss has none of the surprise of the first one. I know what I am reaching for. His mouth opens beneath mine, and I step closer, fitting myself against the warmth of him. One mittened hand settles between my shoulder blades. The other touches my cheek with ridiculous woolen gentleness.
I laugh against his mouth.
“What?” he asks.
“The flowers.”
He looks at his hand, then back at me. “I can remove the flowers.”
“Don't.”
I kiss him again. His grip at my back firms, and for a few seconds the cold seems to exist only at the edges of us.
When I draw back, he is breathing as hard as I am.
“I want you,” I say.
His eyes close briefly. “Heidi.”
“I know. It's inconvenient.”
“It is several things. Inconvenient is some way down the list.”
I smile, then rest my forehead against his coat.
“I don't want to be afraid of wanting you.”
His arms settle around me.
“I wish I could make that part easier.”
“You are,” I say, surprising us both.
He holds me while I listen to the traffic passing behind him. I could stay like this for a long time, but my body is tired and Ivy will be wanting me soon.
When we separate, I ask whether he can come Tuesday afternoon. I need sleep. A proper stretch of it, without lying half awake listening for every sound.
“Yes,” he says. “I'll have her.”
I nod. No plan on paper, no rehearsal of the things he already knows about his daughter.
“Thank you.”
He kisses my forehead, once, before stepping back.
On the drive home, the yellow paint sample slides from my pocket onto the seat. At the next red light I put it in the console, where I will remember to take it to work.
That evening, I try on three dresses and end up in the first one, which feels like a poor use of the only uninterrupted hour I have had all day.
The dress is dark red, loose through the waist, with sleeves I can push up. I bought it before Ivy and worried it would make me look as though I was trying to fit into somebody I used to be. Instead it makes me look like myself in a dress.
That turns out to be enough to make me nervous.
Mom sits on the bed holding Ivy while I put on earrings.
“You look lovely.”
“You're legally required to say that.”
“Only until eighteen. After that it's discretionary.”
I look at her in the mirror. “Do you think this is a mistake?”
“I think you're going to dinner.”
“With my husband.”
“Yes.”
“The one who,”
“I know which one, honey.”
I look down at the earrings in my palm.
“I want to go.”
“Then go.”
When Beau arrives, he has shaved and put on the charcoal shirt I used to steal because the sleeves were long enough to cover my hands. He looks up as I come down the stairs, and the expression on his face makes the last few steps feel longer.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hello.”
Neither of us moves.
Mom clears her throat behind me. “The baby and I have a very demanding evening planned. You two should get out of our way.”
Beau smiles at her, but his eyes come straight back to me.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. So do you.”
This time I let the words reach me.
Desire warms my face. So does fear.
The last time I dressed for him, I was heavily pregnant and trying to turn a final prenatal appointment into evidence that our marriage was intact. Tonight I have invited him because I want his company.
“You can keep looking,” I say.
His mouth curves. “Thank you.”
“Within reason.”
“A devastating restriction.”
I put on my coat before the conversation becomes easier than I am ready for. Beau opens the door, and his hand settles lightly at my back as I pass.
His smile changes. Warmer. Almost startled.
The touch follows me all the way to the car.
In the car, I put my hand on the console out of habit. We both look at it. I leave it there, though I don't take his.
The restaurant has candles in thick glass jars and windows looking toward the river. We sit at a small table with one uneven leg, and Beau notices it before the menus arrive.
“Leave it,” I say.
“I haven't done anything.”
“Your knee is calculating.”
He moves it away from the table. “I'll try to remain a civilian.”
We eat. The food is warm and rich, the room full of people having conversations that belong to their own lives. Nobody appears to recognize us. I feel my shoulders come down by a small but measurable amount.
Beau asks about the school display. I tell him about the red cape and the child who drew the chair. He listens.
“What will you put beside it?” he asks.
“Something about making room for children who don't know how to ask for quiet.”
He nods, thinking. “That sounds like your room.”
“It is.”
I like that he knows.
Later, I ask whether he remembers the actual color of my ruined boots.
“Red.”
“Not just red.”
“Violently red.”
“Cherry.”
“They could have directed aircraft.”
I laugh. On our first date, Beau took me to see a half-finished community garden because I had mentioned wanting one at school. He promised the ground was firm. I sank to one ankle in mud, tried to pull free and left the boot behind.
“You stood there holding my foot,” I remind him.
“You wouldn't put it down.”
“It was raining.”
“It was already muddy.”
“I had standards.”
“You had one boot.”
The laugh comes so hard I have to put down my fork.
Beau leans back, grinning at me, and for a moment I can see the man from that day: dark hair falling into his eyes, mud on his wrist, offering me a lift with the solemnity of somebody carrying a priceless object and the balance of a man who had underestimated a ditch.
“You were showing off,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Did you know I liked it?”
“I hoped. You kept laughing.”
“I liked you before the garden.”
He grows quiet.
“I know,” he says.
The past touches the table. I don't push it away, but I don't let it take every chair either.
“Tell me about the window,” I say.
He groans. “Which version?”
“The truthful one.”
“At nineteen, I installed an entire window upside down and argued with my father that it was a manufacturer error.”
“How long did you argue?”
“Long enough that he got a chair.”
Beau's father died before I knew him. I have learned him in stories, a man who would sit in a chair and let his son discover the limits of confidence.
“What did he say when you finally noticed?”
“Asked whether I wanted to turn the house over or just the window.”
I put my hand over my mouth. Beau watches me with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
“I miss this,” he says.
“Me too.”
It is the first time I have said it while looking straight at him.
Outside, the air is cold enough to make us both draw a breath. I pull my coat tighter. We stand beneath the awning while Beau gets the keys out.
“I had a good time,” I say.
“So did I.”
I am grateful and irritated that he waits.
“Beau.”
He turns.
I slide my hand inside his open coat, feeling the warmth of his chest through his shirt, and rise onto my toes.
The kiss is brief because I mean it to be. Then his mouth softens beneath mine and I forget the exact size I intended. His hand cups the back of my head, steady and warm, and I hold the front of his shirt while the street goes quiet around us.
I know this mouth. I have missed it in ways that felt too humiliating to name.
When I draw back, he does not chase me. His forehead nearly touches mine.
“Hi,” he says again, rougher this time.
I laugh, a little breathless. “Your conversation has deteriorated.”
“Considerably.”
My hand is still against his chest. I can feel how fast his heart is beating.
“Take me home,” I say.
He nods. His hand slides away slowly.
In the car, I put my hand on the console again. This time, when he opens his beside it, I take it for the short drive through the dark.
At the house he walks me to the door, kisses me once, and goes. I lock it behind him and lean there with my coat still on.