Chapter 9 #2
Later he came to collect Sophie from a conversation about wallpaper. The owner wanted her opinion on a photograph he hoped to enlarge, and she was halfway through explaining the print quality when Jesse held out her coat.
“We can go when you’ve finished,” he said. He draped it over the empty chair beside her, then stayed long enough for the owner to offer him another drink.
Sophie finished her explanation. When she looked for Jesse again, he was holding the baby while Ben’s partner ate with both hands, and she felt a sharp, inconvenient tenderness toward him.
He had the baby’s weight settled along one forearm, the other hand cupped around a foot, and was listening gravely to Ben complain about something that had arrived three weeks late.
On the walk home she asked whether he regretted not having children yet. He looked surprised, then took her hand out of her coat pocket and put it into his.
“Do you?” he asked. “I thought we were leaving that until after you’d got the room sorted.”
“I don’t know when that’ll be.” She stepped around a broken paving stone. “They keep finding reasons to put it off.”
“Then we talk about it again.” He squeezed her hand inside his pocket. “We don’t have to know tonight.”
Sophie let the subject go. At the next crossing he drew her into the doorway of the closed florist and kissed her with his hand warm beneath her coat, and she stopped thinking about anything beyond getting him home.
She lost a shoe trying to take them off without unfastening the straps.
Jesse caught it before it rolled beneath a parked car, then steadied her while she changed into the flats from her bag.
By the time they reached their own street, she was carrying her heels and laughing too hard to tell him where she’d put her key.
The next afternoon Lorraine called while they were buying paint. Jesse went outside to answer and came back before Sophie had chosen between two shades of blue. He said his mother wanted to know whether they were coming for Thanksgiving.
“Already?” Sophie asked. She held the sample cards against each other.
“She’s planning,” he said. He took the darker card from her hand. “This one.”
“What did you tell her?” Sophie watched his face instead of the paint.
“That we’d talk about it,” he said. “You and me.”
Sophie gave him both cards to hold against the pale wood. They chose the darker blue and went to the checkout, where Jesse took her hand while the cashier mixed the paint.
The next week she stopped at his office to bring him the hotel confirmation. His receptionist, Denise, was sorting invoices behind the front desk, and a white bakery box sat beside her keyboard.
“You just missed Lorraine,” Denise said. She smiled toward the box. “She brought enough for everybody.”
Sophie stopped with the confirmation folded in her hand. “Was she here long?”
“Half an hour, maybe.” Denise looked up. “Jesse’s in the back.”
He came out before Sophie reached the corridor. He seemed pleased to see her, kissed her cheek, and took the paper from her hand while she tried to decide how to ask about Lorraine without sounding like she had come to inspect him.
“Your mom was here,” Sophie said.
Jesse nodded. “Lunch,” he said. “She wanted to apologize.”
“To you?”
“For causing trouble.” He folded the confirmation along its existing crease. “She said she understands the house thing.”
Sophie leaned against the desk, over a patch where the varnish had worn away beneath his elbow. His mother’s old business license still hung on the wall, its frame as dusty as the one beside it containing his own qualifications.
“What did she say?” Sophie asked. She picked up the photograph beside his laptop, the one he’d taken with his first truck.
“That she won’t come by,” he said. He put the hotel paper in his drawer. “Soph, it was fine.”
Denise called through the doorway that a supplier was on hold. Sophie put the photograph back and kissed Jesse goodbye before he picked up the phone. He was speaking to the supplier as she passed Denise’s desk.
That evening he came behind her while she cooked and stayed close even when she complained that she couldn’t reach the stove. Sophie put the spoon in his hand and told him to stir. He kissed her neck until she turned the burner down herself.
They booked a boat rental for the second day at the lake. Jesse promised to leave his work laptop at home, and Sophie bought a dark red dress that showed more of her legs than she usually showed at dinner. She hung it inside the wardrobe where he wouldn’t see it before the trip.
On Friday, Bethany sent another message. Lorraine had been telling Ruth that Sophie called her jealous at the family dinner, and Bethany wanted to know whether Sophie intended to answer. Sophie stared at the words, remembering the pleasure she had taken in placing the parcel in Lorraine’s hands.
I’m leaving it alone for now. Thanks for telling me.
Sophie sent the reply and put the phone away when Jesse came in.
“Something at work?” he asked. She said yes before he’d finished the question, and he set down the box he’d brought home without asking more.
He had a new doorbell camera in his hand. A neighbor’s package had been stolen, and he said he wanted to install one before they went away. Sophie followed him to the porch and held the screws while he worked, teasing him about the number of times he checked the angle.
When the app finally showed them both on the screen, Jesse put an arm around her and kissed her cheek. Sophie saved the first little clip because they looked happy in it, standing on the porch of the house they had chosen together.