17. Georgina #3
I nod. He frees the caught fabric and fastens the button, his knuckles brushing my wrist. I want to catch his hand before he takes it away. I also want a minute in which nobody touches me, so I can discover whether I can stand on my own without immediately missing him.
Neither feeling makes the other go away.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes.” I look up, making myself give him an honest answer. “I don’t regret it.”
His shoulders ease a little. I hadn’t realized he was waiting to hear that, and the knowledge makes me ache for him in a way I’m not ready to encourage.
“But I meant what I said before.”
“I know.” He lets his hands fall to his sides. “I’m not asking you to take it back.”
I believe him about that. I can see the questions he isn’t asking, and the effort of keeping them to himself.
Part of me wants to reward that effort with an answer, something kind enough to soften the way he is looking at me.
But I don’t have one yet, and giving him a promise because he has respected a boundary would make a bargain out of something that should never have required one.
“Can we not talk about it?” I pull my coat from the peg. “Not today. I don’t know how to explain it without making it sound like something it wasn’t.”
Max holds out his hand for the coat, and I give it to him. “All right.”
He helps me into it, lifting my braid free of the collar. The gesture is so familiar that I nearly lean back against him. Instead, I turn and smooth the lapel, giving my hands a task while I find the rest of what I need to say.
“I still want the afternoon to myself.”
He takes a breath, then nods. “I’ll see to the things I left outside.”
There is disappointment in his voice. I can bear it more easily because he hasn’t made it an argument.
I slide back the bolt and step into the aisle. He follows with his helmet, leaving me room to walk ahead. At the entrance, the yard is blurred with rain, and I stop beneath the overhang. I should go inside. Instead, I watch him put his helmet on the hook and pick up the towel we abandoned.
I wanted him, and I chose him for a little while.
That doesn’t oblige me to know how to choose the rest of our life today.
I repeat it to myself while he carries the towel toward the wash area, because the part of me that wants to call him back has never been particularly interested in reasonable explanations.
My phone vibrates against my side. I reach into the dry pocket of my coat, grateful for the excuse to look down.
Giselle’s name fills the screen.
Are you really going to make me come all the way to Le Marche to get you to talk to me?
I read it twice, the closeness of the last hour still with me while something much colder settles beneath it.
Her earlier messages about Max’s interview are still above this one.
She was humiliated. Mother was upset. Everyone had something to say.
Somewhere in all of that, apparently, I have failed to give my sister enough attention.
She has always known where this house is. That is what makes the message land differently from another demand to call her. She could get into a car and come here. Knowing I don’t want her to has not even entered the sentence.
I type: Don’t come. I haven’t invited you.
My thumb hovers for a moment before I send it. Then I press down and let the answer stand.
“Elle?” Max has turned from the tap. He looks from my face to the phone, his hand still resting on the towel rail. “What’s happened?”
“Giselle.” I turn the screen toward him as he comes closer. “She thinks I owe her a conversation.”
He reads without taking the phone. The change in his expression is immediate, the discomfort between us giving way to something sharper.
“Has she said she’s on her way?” He looks up at me, waiting for an answer instead of reaching for his own phone.
“No. Just that.” I turn the screen back toward myself. There is no reply yet. “And I’ve told her not to come.”
“I’ll tell Deus.” Max glances toward the house, then catches himself. “Unless you’d rather do it.”
“I’ll tell him.” I put the phone away, making the decision while I can still hear my own thoughts over my sister’s. “And Rosa. I don’t want anyone arranging a visit because they think we ought to talk.”
“All right.” Max steps back from the doorway as I turn toward the yard. He looks as though there is more he wants to say, but I need a little time before I can listen to anything else.
“I only came down to watch for ten minutes.” I look at the rain beyond the overhang. It has eased enough that I can see the path to the house.
“You stayed longer.” Max’s voice softens, and I know he means before any of this, when I was leaning on the rail and arguing with him about the bay.
“I wanted to.” I let him have the truth of that without adding a promise to it. Then I pull my coat closer and step out from under the roof.
At the garden gate, I pause with my hand on the latch. I need to speak to Rosa, to tell Deus what Giselle has said. None of that requires me to explain what happened between Max and me, although my sister’s timing makes me feel as if I have been caught doing something she has a right to question.
I don’t owe her that. I can want my husband and remain angry with him. I can ask him to stand beside me without handing back everything I took with me when I left. Those choices were difficult enough before Giselle decided she had waited long enough for access to them.
I look back once. Max is still under the overhang, watching to see whether I get inside.
For a moment I wish I could go back and ask him to sit with me until I stop feeling the message against my skin.
I don’t. I asked for the afternoon, and I still need it.
Missing him already doesn’t make that untrue.
I open the gate. For the first time all afternoon, I know exactly what I want to say.
This time, my sister will have to hear me say no.