Chapter 21
The museum offered Sophie the room through the end of the school year.
Her director called it an extension of the trial, reminded her that evening rentals still mattered, and asked whether she could manage both.
Sophie said she could, then told him she needed paid help instead of another volunteer list.
She left the meeting with two afternoons of staff support and a plan to ask for a permanent role in June. In the corridor she called Jesse, forgetting to decide whether she should call someone else first. He answered from a job site and walked somewhere quieter while she talked.
“I’m coming home,” she said when she finished, stopping beside the corridor window. “To the house, I mean. Will you come over?”
Jesse asked what time. She told him whenever he finished work, then stayed on the call while he described what he was doing so she could hear his voice a little longer.
She bought flowers on the way. At home she put them in the blue jug and called Kelly while she changed out of her work clothes. Her sister had started the new job on Monday and answered with the sound of a crowded train behind her.
“I think I’m going to ask him to stay,” she said. She stood beside the bed with one hand on the pillow.
Kelly asked her to repeat it. Sophie did, more loudly, and heard her sister move away from someone before she answered.
“Tonight?” The train doors chimed behind Kelly’s voice.
“To start with,” Sophie said. She looked at the wardrobe, half empty since December. “Other nights, maybe. We haven’t talked about it yet.”
“You could wait.” Kelly stopped, then swore quietly as somebody knocked into her. “Sorry. Not you. I’m trying to get off.”
Sophie sat on the bed and waited through the clatter of the platform. When Kelly spoke again, she asked whether Sophie still had the spare-room key.
“Somewhere.” Sophie knew exactly where it was: in the zipped pocket of the bag she’d taken when she left Jesse.
“Keep it,” Kelly said. “I lose mine every other week. You’ll have to come let me in.”
Sophie laughed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She asked about Kelly’s first week, and by the time they hung up she’d stopped trying to rehearse what she’d say to Jesse.
He brought a bottle of wine. Sophie took it, put it unopened on the counter, and kissed him before he had finished taking off his jacket. He held her with both hands at her waist, smiling against her mouth until she drew back.
“Congratulations,” he said. He looked past her at the flowers. “You bought those already. I should have thought of it.”
“I wanted them.” She led him into the kitchen. “I didn’t want to wait.”
They made dinner together. Sophie told him about the meeting, including the part where she’d asked for paid help before she knew whether the director would agree to keep the room.
Jesse stole a taste of the sauce and burned his tongue, then insisted she keep talking while he drank half a glass of water.
Afterward he stood to clear the plates. Sophie caught his wrist, then let go when he turned toward her.
“Stay,” she said. “I want you to stay.”
He set the plates down. Now that he was looking at her, she couldn’t remember what she’d planned to say next.
“Tonight?” he asked. His voice was rough.
“Yes,” she said. She rubbed her hands against her pants. “And other nights. I want to try living here together again.”
He sat and pulled his chair nearer hers. Sophie put her hand on the table, within reach, while she told him the rest.
“Your mother can’t come here,” she said. “I’m not ready to sit in my own kitchen with her.”
“She won’t,” he said. He leaned forward. “I won’t bring her.”
“I might never want her here. I don’t want to agree to something now and find out you thought I meant until Christmas.”
Jesse pushed his chair back an inch. “I’ll see her somewhere else,” he said. “If I see her.”
She wanted to ask whether he’d heard the part about never, but he’d already answered. When he reached for her hand again, she took his.
They talked about the studio and his things, and whether he would stay every night.
He would keep the studio for another month and use the guest room at first. Sophie asked him to leave the new key on the kitchen counter if he went out before she woke, then changed her mind and told him to take it because there was no point pretending he didn’t live there.
Jesse took the key when she put it beside his hand. He turned it over twice, then closed his fingers around it and sat without speaking.
“You can say something.” Sophie went to him, suddenly afraid he’d changed his mind.
“I was thinking about the bed in that place.” Jesse put the key in his pocket and pulled her between his knees. “I hate that damn bed.”
She put her arms around his shoulders. He held her tightly, his face against her stomach, until she told him he was squeezing the breath out of her and he loosened his hands enough for her to laugh.
He slept in the guest room that night. Sophie lay awake listening to the unfamiliar quiet of knowing he was in the house without having him beside her. At two she went downstairs for water and found him in the kitchen, standing barefoot in front of the open refrigerator.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. He shut the refrigerator without taking anything. “You?”
She shook her head. He came to her, and she let him put his arms around her without pretending she had come downstairs only for water. They stood in the dark kitchen until she yawned, then went upstairs together and separated at the landing.
In the morning his work boots stood on the mat. Sophie nearly tripped over them, swore, and heard him call an apology from the kitchen. The ordinary irritation made her laugh before she reached him.
On their second Friday she came home to find his overnight bag in the guest room and his work shirt hanging from the back of their bedroom chair.
She stopped in the doorway, looking at it, then carried it back to the guest room and left it on the bed.
When he asked where it had gone, she said she’d put it with his things.
“I was going to iron it,” he said. He picked it up and looked toward their bedroom. “The board’s in there.”
She’d moved the board because the guest room was full of boxes. Now he was waiting as though that settled where he could leave his clothes.
“There’s a wardrobe in there,” she said. She passed him on the stairs and went to the kitchen, where he’d left the pan from breakfast soaking in the sink.
He followed her. “If you want me back at the studio, say so,” he said. “Don’t move things and wait for me to work it out.”
“It was a shirt.” Sophie hated how much she sounded like him.
“I was going to iron it.” Jesse hung it over the kitchen chair, leaving one sleeve touching the floor. “You moved the board. I went where the board was.”
Jesse lifted the trailing sleeve off the floor. He went upstairs and brought down the ironing board, catching one leg on the corner of the wall hard enough to leave a mark.
“Shit.” He rubbed the plaster. “I’ll fix that.”
Sophie nearly laughed. He looked so annoyed with himself that she went to the drawer for a cloth, wet it, and handed it to him.
He ironed the shirt in the kitchen while she finished the dishes. Afterward she asked him to put the board in their bedroom again because it blocked the pantry, and he carried it up carefully, turning it sideways at the corner he’d hit. She followed with his shirt and hung it on the wardrobe door.
On Saturday he accepted an extra job without remembering they’d arranged to see Kelly. Sophie found out when he came downstairs carrying his tool bag and asked whether she needed the truck.
“We’re going to my sister’s.” She pointed at the cake she’d bought. “I told you Tuesday.”
“I forgot.” Jesse set down the bag. “I’ll be back by four.”
“And if you’re not?” She pushed the cake farther onto the counter, though it hadn’t been near the edge. “I can go by myself. I’ve had practice.”
His face changed. “That’s a job,” he said. He took out his phone. “You can ring the customer if you think I’m going somewhere else.”
“I didn’t say your mother.” Sophie rinsed a clean mug.
“You didn’t have to.” Jesse began scrolling, stopped, and rang the customer before Sophie could answer.
He arranged to start earlier and finish on Monday if he couldn’t get it done by three. Sophie gave him the time they’d promised Kelly when he asked, and he repeated it into the phone before ending the call.
“Four.” He picked up the tool bag. “I’ll be back by four.”
Sophie said that was fine. After he left, she went upstairs to choose what she’d wear to Kelly’s, still rehearsing what she’d say if he was late.
He came back at three forty and found her waiting with the cake and her coat on. They argued about whether he had time to shower; then she waited in the car with the radio too loud while he washed, changed, and made a sandwich because he’d skipped lunch.
He turned the radio down as soon as he got in. Sophie told him he needn’t have hurried on her account, and they drove the rest of the way without speaking.
Outside Kelly’s, he finished the sandwich. Sophie took a napkin from the bag and handed it to him without mentioning the mustard on his chin until he asked what it was for.
“Other side.” She watched him get it. “We’d better go in.”
Kelly opened the door asking why they were standing on the step like salespeople.
Jesse carried in the groceries, Sophie took off her coat, and the evening became pleasant after the first glass of wine.
On the drive home she put her hand on his knee, but he left his on the wheel until they reached their own street.
The following evening she heard him on the phone while she was taking the bins out. He was in the kitchen with the back door open, speaking loudly enough for her to catch the name of the cousin who’d sat beside Ruth at the family dinner.
“Same rate as anybody else,” Jesse said. He turned a page on the table. “I sent you the quote. That’s what it’ll cost.”