43. Jeremiah
JEREMIAH
Zelda is showing me a photograph of the library ceiling when I realize I have stopped walking.
“You can’t see him,” she says, enlarging it with two fingers. “There. Behind the moon.”
There is a paper astronaut tangled in a string of planets. Someone has given him a shopping bag.
“Supplies?” I ask.
“His mother says he takes one everywhere in case they pass a shop.”
“Sensible.”
“He’s six. He wants chips on Saturn.”
She laughs, her thumb still trying to make the little figure larger. The early October wind lifts a strand of hair into her mouth. She pulls it free impatiently, then starts telling me what the other children put in their spaceships.
Otto fusses from the stroller. We have stopped in front of the swings he likes watching, but a dog is passing behind us and he cannot turn far enough to see it. Zelda bends to adjust his blanket. I wheel him around.
“There. Better?”
The dog takes no interest in any of us. Otto watches it leave with an open mouth.
I want this. The small expedition, her interrupted story, the way she puts her phone into my hand so I can look at the photograph while she finds our son’s sock.
I have wanted to ask for weeks. Every time I begin, I think of how much I like the evening we are having and decide to keep it a little longer.
Hedy meets us by the park gate at four. She is taking Otto until after supper. Zelda tells her he has already eaten; Hedy says that will not stop him examining whatever she has.
“Did you find the sock?” she asks me.
I look down. I am holding it.
Zelda laughs. I hand it over with as much dignity as I can manage.
When Hedy has gone, we walk toward the apartment. I ask whether Zelda would like to stop for something to eat. She says there is bread at home. I say we could buy something. She looks at me.
“Do you want to eat out?”
“No.”
“Then why are you trying to buy a sandwich we already have?”
I stop beside the wall with the painted shapes. She takes two more steps before turning back.
“I’m trying to ask you something.”
Her smile fades, though she stays close.
I had better words in the car. Whole sentences that made room for everything. Now I can only see the hair caught against the collar of her coat and the hand she has left in mine.
“I want us to live together again.”
She looks down the street toward her building.
“I want to come home and find your shoes in the hall,” I say. “I want you to tell me about the day while it’s still happening, before you’ve picked the bits you think I’ll want to hear.”
Her fingers move against mine.
“And I want to be there when you get fed up with me. Instead of going to two different houses with half a conversation left.”
I stop. The rest of the speech would be promises I have already made. I can feel it trying to come out anyway.
“I want the marriage, Zelda. I’m asking whether you want that too.”
A bus passes. We wait for it to go, although neither of us has started speaking. She rubs the edge of her sleeve between finger and thumb.
“I love my apartment.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know I would.”
I look up at the windows. She made a life behind one of them when I had made it impossible for her to stay in ours. I have been happy in that room, invited in for pieces of it. I am asking for more than another night.
“You don’t have to give it up because I’ve asked.”
“Could you keep coming if I said I wasn’t ready?”
The answer hurts before I give it.
“Yes.”
She looks back at me.
“If you say no, I’m still his father,” I say. “I’m still here. This isn’t a deadline.”
Her mouth trembles a little. I want to touch it, but I keep holding her hand and wait.
“Then I need to think.”
I nod. I cannot get anything past my throat.
“All right.”
She comes nearer and puts her other hand around mine. We stand there until the next bus has gone too.
Upstairs, I butter the bread while she finds the filling. I spread it right to the edge, too carefully, and she bumps my hip with hers to get to the drawer.
“Move over. I need a knife.”
I move. She stays beside me.
We take the sandwiches to the table. Mine comes apart when I pick it up. Zelda catches the escaping piece of tomato on her plate.
“You cut it wrong.”
“There is no wrong way to cut a sandwich.”
“Your tomato disagrees.”
“My tomato has abandoned me.”
She gives me half of hers, and I laugh. The question is still sitting between us. So is the plate, and she is hungry, and I have more of an evening with her before Hedy brings Otto home.
“What else did they take to Saturn?” I ask.
Her face lights. “You haven’t seen the grandmother.”
She reaches for her phone.