14. Josh
Chapter fourteen
Josh
Iris is still crying when Liv’s voice comes through the monitor.
The bottles are still beside the sink, right where we left them.
Right. Bottles.
I reach for the nearest one.
It slips once in my hand. I catch it before it hits the sink and rinse it again.
I keep my eyes on it. Not the counter. Not the place where Liv stood.
I can’t make out Liv's words. I know the sound anyway. It reminds me of nights when she took calls at my kitchen table, one foot tucked under her, voice low and even while someone on the other end learned, too late, that she had already won.
I used to pretend I wasn’t listening.
Iris begins to settle.
So there really isn’t any practical reason to keep listening.
I set each clean part in the rack where she would put it. I reach for the next.
I should be listening for the baby.
Apparently, I am still pretending, because I am listening. To Liv.
I rinse the same bottle twice before I notice.
I set it in the rack.
Now I am out of bottles.
Which leaves me with the problem of what to do with the rest of my body.
The couch is twelve feet away. Sitting down would suggest a level of calm I do not currently have. Pacing would look worse. Leaving the kitchen feels too much like fleeing the scene.
I could do any number of things that would make it look like I know what happens next.
I stay at the counter.
The pen is still beside the sink, where I put it after I took it from her hand.
I pick it up.
One click.
The sound puts me back at the counter with her hand under mine.
Through the monitor, Liv’s voice drops. Iris gives one last broken complaint, then quiets.
I look at the nursery door.
She is going to come out now.
I have used up the bottles. The faucet is off. The pen is back where I put it. There is nothing left to make my hands look busy.
The nursery door opens.
Liv steps into the hall with the burp cloth still on her shoulder. Her collar is twisted where Iris must have grabbed it, and one side of her hair has come loose.
This is not the version of Liv most people get to see. I have to look back at the sink.
The guest room door is open at the end of the hall. She could go straight in and close it. I would have to let her.
She doesn’t.
She walks past it and comes into the kitchen.
I am still at the sink.
She stops a few feet inside the kitchen.
No Iris between us. No bottles left. No reason for either of us to pretend we are busy.
I should say something.
I have a bad history with saying nothing when Liv is standing in front of me.
“I keep trying to find the next right thing to do.”
Liv’s fingers stop on the burp cloth.
For one second, I think she is going to make a joke.
She doesn’t.
“With Iris?” she asks.
I look at her.
“With you.”
That is too much for a kitchen with clean bottles on the counter and a baby asleep down the hall.
Liv steps out of the kitchen and into the living room, stopping near the couch with the burp cloth still on her shoulder.
She reaches for it like she has only just remembered it’s there. For a second, she holds it in both hands and looks for somewhere to put it. Her eyes move over the coffee table, the arm of the couch, the empty space beside her.
There isn’t anywhere obvious.
So she folds it once. Then again. Too carefully.
I know that move. I have been washing clean bottles for five minutes.
Words haven’t worked.
Fine.
There is one thing in this apartment ridiculous enough to try next.
I cross from the kitchen into the hall and open the closet. The bullhorn is behind the flashlight and in front of the spare batteries, exactly where it has been since the last time I reorganized.
Liv bought two after the blackout, after three hours stuck in an elevator with a call box that didn’t work. That was the first night I met her: Liv in heels, me in scrubs, both of us trapped between floors with one dying phone and half a granola bar between us.
The next day, she showed up with bullhorns.
One for her. One for me.
I kept mine.
I don’t know if this is enough. She’ll know what it is. She’ll know I still have it.
I carry it toward the living room.
Liv is near the couch when I come through the doorway. She turns at the sound of my steps and goes still when she sees what I’m holding.
I stop at the threshold, the bullhorn low at my side.
Her eyes drop to it. Then lift to my face.
For one second, she does not move. Her gaze cuts past me, toward the hallway closet, and back to the bullhorn.
She knows.
Her hand comes up toward her mouth.
Her hand comes up too late.
The laugh gets out before she can cover it.
She turns away, both hands over her mouth, but there is no hiding it now. Her shoulders shake once. Then again.
I stay where I am.
Bullhorn at my side. Mouth shut.
She looks back at me and laughs harder, which nearly does me in.
I wait until she can breathe. Then I hold the bullhorn out by the handle. Low, without stepping closer.
She looks at it.
Her shoulders still.
Her hands lower from her mouth.
She knows I kept it. She knows I knew precisely where it was.
Liv looks straight at me. “I really missed you.”