Epilogue—Julie
A YEAR LATER, DALEN still can’t cook. I stand beside him at the stove on Sunday evening while he stares suspiciously at a pan of sauce as if it has personally betrayed him. I taste it, reach for the stock carton, and check the label. “You added too much salt.”
“I haven’t added salt.” Dalen takes the spoon from me and tries the sauce himself. His eyebrows pull together. “Okay. Something happened.”
“The stock happened. You bought regular instead of low sodium.”
He takes the carton and squints at the label. “The packaging is deceptive.”
I laugh. “The words are right there.”
“The font is small.”
“You negotiate contracts with footnotes.”
“I have people for that.” He puts the carton down and catches me around the waist when I move past him to lower the burner. “I have you for this.”
“I’m more expensive.”
“I’ve seen your invoices.”
He kisses me before I can answer. The kiss is warm and familiar, and his hand settles at my waist while mine curls around the back of his neck. A year ago, I wondered whether this could ever be easy again.
It is. Most days.
The sauce starts bubbling hard enough to spit onto the range, and I pull away. “Your dinner is dying.”
“Our dinner.” Dalen turns down the burner and gives the sauce a vigorous stir. “You’re invested now.”
“I’m prepared to order pizza.”
He scoffs, but he’s smiling.
My knee aches when I step sideways to retrieve the bread, a small complaint I’ve learned to ignore most of the time. Three scars remain from the surgery. The surgeon says one may fade enough to be difficult to find eventually, but I don’t particularly care whether it does.
For six weeks, that knee kept me downstairs. The grab bars are still in the guest bathroom.
Dalen offered to have them removed exactly once, after asking me first. I told him to leave them because they’re useful for wet towels, and neither of us wanted to explain another renovation to Charlie.
The shower chair went to a medical-equipment charity after I stopped needing it.
The wheelchair went back to the rental company.
Westover went back to Mara. I kept it until I could walk comfortably because coming home had to remain a choice even after I thought I’d made it.
Dalen understood that before I did. He never asked when I was giving up the rental. He never moved anything out of it for me. When I finally handed Mara the keys, Dalen was waiting in the car because I’d asked him to come.
That was six months ago. He’s gotten very good at asking.
I slice the bread while Dalen tries to repair the sauce. “How much stock did you use?”
“Exactly what the recipe said.”
“Which recipe?”
His stirring slows.
I turn my head, and he avoids my eyes. “You changed recipes again.”
“The first one had unnecessary steps.”
I put down the knife. “We’ve discussed this.”
He shrugs. “Several times.”
“You aren’t qualified to improvise.”
Dalen slides one arm around my waist and pulls me against him. “You married me anyway.”
“I was young and impressionable.”
“You were thirty.”
“I had hope.”
He laughs against my mouth when he kisses me again.
Sunday dinner survived. For a while, I didn’t think it would. We lost other things.
Meg isn’t here. She hasn’t sat at our table since the night she brought chocolate cake and complained about changing file folders at a job she’d already lost. Sometimes that memory still catches me wrong.
I can see her stealing vegetables from the serving bowl, teasing Dalen, and checking my dry hands before she left.
I loved that version of my sister. I love the woman she is too, though loving her doesn’t require me to let her back into my life.
Dalen never tells me what to do about her. That’s one of the things he’s learned.
I carry the bread to the table while he brings the chicken and vegetables. When I return for the wine, I find three glasses in the cabinet and pause with my hand on one.
For a second, I’m back at that first Sunday dinner, with Meg sitting on her usual stool.
Three wineglasses beside the sink. My sister hugging me before she walked out the door.
She pleaded guilty, served three months, and lives at a halfway house now.
I haven’t seen her in seven months. Some days, I miss her so much I have to remind myself that missing someone isn’t an instruction.
I take down two.
Dalen has already sat by the time I join him. He reaches for my hand across the table, then stops with his palm open between us.
I put mine in it. He squeezes once.
“How was therapy?” he asks.
“Annoying.” I pick up my fork. “She said something reasonable.”
He smiles. “Those are the worst sessions.”
“Exactly.” His therapist apparently has the same terrible habit.
We don’t compare everything we discuss in those rooms. Mine are mine, and his are his. Sometimes, I tell him something because I want him to know. Sometimes, he comes home, kisses me, and says he needs a little time to think.
He’s learned that uncertainty won’t kill him.
I’m still learning that taking care of someone doesn’t require taking responsibility for everything that happens to them.
Our therapists should probably get matching yachts.
I cut into the chicken and take a bite. Then another.
Dalen watches me.
I look up. “What?”
“You haven’t insulted it.”
“I was chewing.”
“You usually multitask.”
I take another bite while he waits. “It’s good.”
His fork stops halfway to his mouth, and I immediately regret speaking. “Say that again.”
“No.”
“You said it was good.” His grin spreads as he reaches for his phone. “I’m recording this.”
I kick him beneath the table.
He laughs and puts down the phone. “Violence because you can’t admit I’ve improved.”
“Your therapist will be very interested in this interpretation.”
“I’ll bring it up Tuesday.”
I shake my head and eat another piece of chicken. It really is good, but I’m taking that information to my grave.
After dinner, I load the dishwasher while Dalen cleans the pans. He still dries the wineglasses because I still hate doing them. I still close cabinets behind him. His reading glasses still migrate to my nightstand, and most mornings, I still put them back on his side.
Some habits returned because we wanted them. Others never left.
My wedding ring catches the kitchen light when I reach into the sink. I started wearing it again three months after I came home.
Dalen didn’t notice for almost an hour. When he finally saw it, he stopped in the middle of telling me about work and stared at my hand. He didn’t ask what it meant. He didn’t grab me, kiss me, or turn it into a declaration I hadn’t made.
He cried. That was considerably harder to resist.
I dry my hands and turn to find him putting away the last pan.
A thump sounds upstairs.
My hands stop on the towel, and Dalen freezes beside the cabinet as the house settles into silence again.
For one instant, memory puts me somewhere else. I wake in darkness with the certainty that someone is beside my bed.
I find an open door I know I locked.
I hear someone downstairs while my husband asks whether I’m sure.
Dalen puts the pan on the counter.
He doesn’t tell me it was probably the house settling or head upstairs to investigate before I’ve decided what I want to do. He doesn’t watch my face for evidence that I’m frightened enough to require managing.
He walks over and holds out his hand. “Stay here or come with me?”
I put down the towel and lace my fingers through his. “You know I’m coming.”
His mouth curves. We go upstairs together. Our new cat, Holly, has knocked over a vase. She sits near it and gives me a haughty look, already denying it before I can ask.