Chapter Fifteen
Evan
PENELOPE SETS A KEY in my hand Saturday morning.
We’re standing in her kitchen. She’s holding a mug of tea (she switched from coffee during the third trimester because caffeine made the baby restless), Dave is on the couch, and the apartment smells like the basswood she was sanding last night in the den.
“I had another one made,” she says.
The key is new. Brass. It sits in my palm, warm from her pocket. I close my fingers around it and hold it for a moment before I say anything. “Thank you.”
“You should bring a suitcase. One suitcase. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.”
I drive to the DC apartment. I pack a suitcase and one box from the nursery.
The box has children’s books I bought over the last two months, one at a time, from a bookshop in Georgetown.
Penelope doesn’t know about them. Buying a children’s book isn’t a decision I need to make for both of us.
It’s just hope, accumulated one hardcover at a time.
I leave the DC apartment with one suitcase and one box. Everything else stays. My suits hang in the closet. The furniture remains. I’m not closing this place down because Penelope said one suitcase, and I’m done deciding that my timeline matters more than her instructions.
THE APARTMENT IS SMALL. This was obvious when I visited, but visiting and living are different.
Penelope’s system occupies every inch. Her commissions take up the den.
Her tools hang on a pegboard Amy installed.
The reference books share shelf space with pregnancy guides and Sam’s latest manuscript pages, which he leaves here during Saturday visits because he claims her living room has better reading light than his study.
Oscar has a designated corner cushion. Dave has the couch.
I bring the suitcase and the box. There is nowhere to put either of them.
“The closet has about six inches of available space,” Penelope says. “Amy measured.”
“Amy measured my closet allocation?”
“Amy measures everything. You should be grateful she didn’t create a spreadsheet.”
I hang what I can and fold the rest into a drawer she cleared for me.
My suits stay in the DC apartment because there’s no room for them here and because wearing a suit in this apartment would be like wearing a tuxedo to a campsite.
This isn’t my world. This is hers. I’m entering it on her terms. The terms include a six-inch closet allotment and a dog who has claimed the center of the bed.
The first night is strange in the best possible way. We eat dinner at her kitchen table, which seats two and is covered in wood shavings Penelope swears she cleaned.
“Amelia Jean,” she says, pushing rice around her plate.
“Amelia Jean Drake.”
“She’s going to be a screamer. Middle-of-the-night, full-volume screamer.”
“She’s going to sleep through by week six.”
Penelope stares at me. “You have read absolutely nothing useful.”
Dave contributes nothing to the debate but eats a piece of chicken that falls off my plate.
At two in the morning, neither of us can sleep. The apartment is too warm, and the bed is unfamiliar with two people in it. Dave has positioned himself across both pillows in a way that suggests he’s been planning this territorial expansion for weeks.
We end up on the kitchen floor. Penelope sits against the refrigerator with a bag of popcorn in her lap. I sit against the dishwasher. The linoleum is cold. Dave peers over the edge of the bed, decides the floor is beneath him, and goes back to sleep.
“Amelia Jean,” Penelope says, eating popcorn with her fingers.
“Amelia Jean Drake. She’s going to have your stubbornness.”
“She’s going to have yours. Mine comes in a distant second.”
Penelope laughs. The laugh is quiet because it’s two in the morning, but it fills the kitchen. I sit on the floor, eat cereal, let the moment exist.
THE RING COMES OUT on a Friday evening. I’m in the den organizing commission files while Penelope works at the kitchen table. She calls me into the bedroom. She’s sitting on the bed with her jewelry box open.
“I want to put it back on,” she says.
The ring is gold, inscribed on the inside with our date and our initials.
She sets it at the tip of her finger and pushes.
Her hands are swollen from the pregnancy, and the band resists at the knuckle.
She pushes again. It slides on, snug. She holds up her hand and looks at it.
Her eyes are wet, and she’s laughing. The combination is perfect.
Dave jumps onto the bed and licks my face. He either loves me or thinks I dropped food.
SAM ARRIVES ON SATURDAY with Oscar and a gift wrapped in newspaper. He sets the gift on the kitchen table and unwraps it himself, having apparently decided that wrapping gifts for other people to open is an unnecessary social convention.
Inside is a miniature rocking chair. Sam built it himself. The proportions are slightly wrong, the paint is uneven, and one runner has a visible wobble. It’s the most amateur piece of miniature furniture I’ve ever seen, but Penelope picks it up without saying anything for a long time.
“It’s for the baby’s dollhouse,” Sam says. “Every child should have a dollhouse. I expect Amelia Jean will have one before she can walk.”
“Dad, you built this.”
“I used your tools. Amy supervised. She wanted me to tell you she takes no responsibility for the runner. She left early for her date with Richard. Number seven, but who’s counting?” He’s almost crowing.
Jean’s blanket is draped over the arm of the couch, finished now. The yellow yarn catches the afternoon light through the living room window. Sam sees it and touches the edge with one finger. He does this when he thinks Penelope isn’t watching, but she’s always watching.
My mother and father arrive together. They don’t announce it.
They walk in holding grocery bags and wearing the expressions of two people who have been together long enough again that arriving together no longer requires explanation.
Glynnis hugs Penelope and inspects the apartment with approval.
She knows exactly what this independence cost. Frank shakes my hand and holds it a second longer than necessary.
The extra second says everything he’s ever had difficulty saying out loud.
Sam tells the story of Penelope’s birth. He tells it every time the family gathers now, revising the pacing while keeping the essential facts.
“Your mother was in labor for thirty-six hours,” he tells Penelope. “She threatened to divorce me twice and file a malpractice suit against the obstetrician. The doctor retired the following year. Coincidence, I’m sure.”
Glynnis laughs. Frank laughs. Penelope rolls her eyes as Dave steals a roll from the counter while everyone is distracted. Oscar barks at him, but Dave has committed to the roll and shows no remorse. He drops a bite that Oscar snatches. Maybe accidentally, or maybe a bribe.
After the laughter fades, Penelope asks me about the house. “What about it? The nursery?”
I look at her. “It’s a room I built while I was trying to become someone you could trust. We don’t have to live there because I built it.”
“What do you want to do with it?”
“I want you to decide that with me. When you’re ready.”
She nods. The bassinet Amy ordered sits in our bedroom, already tested for fit.
Penelope marked a rectangle on the floor with painter’s tape because Amy insisted we confirm the dimensions before purchasing.
Amelia will sleep beside our bed for the first months.
The nursery, the marital house, and the future beyond this apartment can wait until we’re ready to decide together.
EVERYONE LEAVES. THE apartment empties into silence. Penelope and I clean the kitchen. Then we lie in bed with Dave at the foot and her belly between us, large enough now that she sleeps on her side with a pillow wedged beneath her.
She takes my hand and puts it where the baby is most active.
“She’s going to be a handful,” Penelope says.
I look at the ring on her finger, the gold band she chose to put back on herself. I look at her face.
“I will ask you,” I say. “Every time. Even when I’m afraid of the answer.”
She doesn’t answer. She slides her fingers between mine and leaves them there.