25. Fran #3
“You can start by clearing out half the dresser.” I say it before I can talk myself out of it. “And the left side of the closet. If you’re staying.”
He goes still. “If I’m staying?”
“I’m not asking you back to the couch, Logan.” I keep my voice steady. “I’m asking you into the dresser. The closet. The bed. All of it. Your things next to my things. Is that something you want?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “Fran, yes. I want all of it.”
“Good.” I poke his ribs. “Then tomorrow we’re reorganizing. Tonight you’re getting food, because I’m starving and you’re just lying there looking stunned.”
“I’m not stunned. I’m processing.”
“Process faster. The baby wants sandwiches.”
“The baby doesn’t know what sandwiches are.”
“They have instincts.” I poke him again. “Go. Kitchen. Whatever you can find. I’ll be here, claiming the good pillow.”
He goes, pulling on pants and nothing else, and I watch him disappear through the doorway. Then I lie there in the wrecked bed and the golden afternoon light and think about how strange it is that this is my life now. That I get to have this. That I said the thing out loud and he’s coming back.
I take the good pillow.
I’ve earned it.
He comes back with sandwiches and apple slices and a glass of milk that I didn’t ask for but drink anyway because he looks so pleased with himself for thinking of it.
We eat in bed like people with no manners and no walls, the afternoon sun still doing its gold thing across the quilt we have definitely ruined.
“I can’t feel my right arm,” Logan says, after.
I shift immediately. “Sorry. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Because you looked comfortable.”
“Your circulation matters more than my comfort.” I resettle against his other side, careful of his scarred left arm. “Better?”
“Better.” He flexes his fingers. “Thank you for not making me suffer in noble silence.”
“That would be stupid. We’re past suffering in silence.”
We lie there while the feeling comes back into his fingers, and I realize I have no idea where he’s been keeping his clothes.
“Where’s your stuff?” I ask.
“What stuff?”
“Your clothes. Your things. You’ve been sleeping on the couch for weeks and I’ve never once tripped over a sock.”
“Duffel bag in the hall closet.” He sounds slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t want to take up space.”
“You’ve been living out of a duffel bag. In your own house.”
“Technically your house. I just bought the deed.”
“Logan.” I prop myself up on one elbow. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t share a bed with me and keep your underwear in hallway storage.”
“I was waiting for permission.”
“You have permission. You’ve had permission since I told you to clear the dresser.” I poke his chest. “Tomorrow we’re unpacking that bag properly. I want to see what you’ve been hoarding in there.”
“It’s mostly work clothes. Sawdust situation.”
“Then we’ll designate a sawdust drawer. Bottom left. It can have its own ecosystem.”
“You’ve really thought about drawer allocation.”
“I’ve thought about a lot of things.” I settle back against him. “Including the fact that you wake up at five and I wake up at seven and we’re going to have to negotiate that.”
“I can be quiet.”
“You can try to be quiet. You’ll fail. You’ll stub your toe on something and swear and the whole farm will know you’re awake.”
“That happened once.”
“It happened Tuesday. And Thursday. And I’m pretty sure Saturday, but I was too tired to keep count.”
He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest into mine. “Fine. I’ll work on stealth.”
“You’ll work on stealth and I’ll work on not throwing things at you before tea.” I trace a circle on his collarbone. “Deal?”
“Deal.” He catches my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Any other cohabitation terms I should know about?”
“Dozens. But we have time.” I snuggle closer, as close as my belly will allow. “I love you, in the daylight, for real. In case the field and the shower and the bed weren’t clear.”
“They were clear.” His voice has gone soft. “I love you too. In case the fence dirt and the terrible water pressure weren’t clear.”
“Crystal.”
Later we migrate to the couch because the bed has been through enough. He reads one of his woodworking journals. I review invoices for the Henderson wedding. It is so domestic, so ordinary, so exactly what I want my life to look like that I keep looking up to make sure it’s still happening.
“I have a question,” he says.
“Shoot.” I don’t look up from the invoices.
“The cottage.” He sets his journal down on his chest. “When do you want to move?”
I do look up now. We toured it at twenty weeks, the rooms he’d been building in secret, the space meant for us. I told him I wanted to live there eventually. Eventually has been sitting between us ever since.
“I was thinking thirty-six weeks,” I say. “Before I’m too pregnant to carry boxes.”
“You’re not carrying boxes.”
“I’m carrying some boxes. Small ones. Symbolic ones.” I set the invoice down. “The nursery needs curtains. The ones you bought are wrong.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“They’re beige. The baby deserves better than beige.”
“I’ll return them.” He nudges my foot with his. “What color?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Something with personality.” I chew an apple slice I stole from his plate. “I want the bookshelves in the main room moved to the east wall. And the kitchen table angled toward the window. And I’m repainting the bathroom.”
“Repainting it what?”
“Something that isn’t builder white. I’ll know it when I see it.”
He nods slowly. “Anything else?”
“Boundaries.” I meet his eyes. “Your parents. Mine. I don’t want them showing up unannounced, expecting access to the baby like they earned it.”
“They don’t come unless you invite them.” No hesitation. “The cottage is ours. Anyone who visits does it on your terms.”
“Our terms.”
“Your terms first. Then ours.” His voice is careful. “After everything, you get the veto.”
“I want to meet the baby first,” I say. “See who our baby is. Then decide who gets to meet them.”
“That’s fair.” He takes another apple slice from his plate. “We decide together. After.”
“Together.” I let the word sit there for a moment. “Thirty-six weeks. I’ll make a list of paint colors.”
“I’ll clear my schedule for curtain shopping.”
“You don’t have a schedule. You have sawdust and opinions.”
“Sawdust, opinions, and curtain shopping.” He’s smiling. “Noted.”
“Hey,” I say after a while.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you. For being patient with me. For not pushing when I wasn’t ready.”
He looks up from his journal. “You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“I know. I want to anyway.” I reach over and take his hand. “You could have given up. After the fire, after I left, after everything. You could have decided I wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“You’re worth every trouble.” He brings my hand to his lips. “You’re worth all of it.”
“That’s very romantic.”
“I’m a very romantic person.”
“You’re a furniture maker who once wrote a poem about a teacher’s hands.”
He groans. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you that story.”
“It’s my favorite story. I’m going to bring it up at inappropriate moments for the rest of our lives.”
“The rest of our lives,” he repeats, and his voice has gone soft. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.” I squeeze his hand. “Me too.”
I put my other hand on my belly, feeling the baby shift and roll, and something settles in my chest that I’m finally willing to call certainty.
This is what I’m choosing. Not because I have to survive, not because I’m trapped, not because a contract says so. Because this bed, this man, this ordinary evening, the I love yous we said in a field in front of God and Gertrude and the dahlias-
This is the life I want. The one I’m building on purpose.
“We’re going to be okay,” I tell her. “All of us. I promise.”
From the kitchen doorway, where he’s gone to pretend he isn’t listening, Logan says, quietly, “I will too.”
I believe him.