Chapter 16
Lena
At exactly ten, Adrian knocked on the unlocked door.
I had carried the flattened shipping box to the recycling bin five minutes earlier and forgotten to turn the lock when I came back inside. The latch had not caught completely. A narrow line of daylight showed between the door and the frame.
Adrian stood on the porch without touching the handle.
I opened it the rest of the way. “You could tell it was unlocked.”
“I could tell it wasn’t closed. You asked me to arrive at ten, not to enter at ten.”
He wore jeans and a dark sweater instead of a suit. His hands were empty.
“No tools?” I asked.
“You didn’t ask me to bring any.”
I stepped aside. “Come in.”
He crossed the threshold for the second time. On his first visit, he had gone only as far as the dining room. Today he followed me toward the room where my work and our child’s future had to coexist.
The narrow hall remained narrow, my camera bag stayed beneath the coat hooks, and the framed print I had bought from a local artist still hung slightly crooked above the bench.
But Adrian had occupied every home we had shared so completely that seeing him inside a place built without him made me aware of every choice I had made alone.
He did not look into the rooms we passed.
The smaller bedroom had served as a temporary studio since I moved in.
Two light stands leaned against the wall.
Backdrop paper filled the closet, and lenses occupied the top shelf where baby supplies would eventually need to go.
The narrow bed had been taken apart. Its frame rested behind the door, waiting for Mara’s neighbor to collect it.
A flat-pack storage cabinet lay across the floor.
“I need the shelves cleared without moving my equipment out of the room,” I said. “The cabinet goes under the window. Baby things can use the top three shelves. My work stays in the lower section and the closet.”
Adrian looked from the shelves to the empty wall. “Which do you want first?”
“Clear the shelves.”
He picked up a case of portrait lenses. “Lower cabinet or closet?”
“Closet, right side.”
He carried it there. When he returned, he pointed to a stack of folded backdrops. “Same place?”
“Top closet shelf. Keep the gray one in front.”
He did.
He asked where the batteries went and whether the light meter could share a bin with cables. Six years ago, he would have called someone to install a complete storage system. Today he moved one object at a time.
When a shelf bracket came loose, he held it up. “Do you want this tightened or replaced?”
“Tightened. I have screws in the blue tin.”
He found the tin where I pointed and used my ordinary screwdriver.
I worked beside him, sorting cords and cleaning the dust left by the bed frame. By eleven, the room had more floor. By eleven thirty, the cabinet stood upright beneath the window, square enough that its inexpensive doors closed without scraping.
Adrian crouched to test the lower door. The cabinet was serviceable, not beautiful. One corner of the laminate had already chipped, and the handles were painted metal. In our old house, no one would have considered it finished furniture.
“Do you want this bottom shelf left open for the larger camera case?” he asked.
“Yes. I still need to work in here after it becomes the baby’s room.”
He adjusted the shelf to the height of the case. “Then this should let you reach both.”
Adrian checked the time on his phone. “What next?”
“Lunch. Then we can anchor it to the wall.”
He followed me into the kitchen and stopped at the edge of the work area. “What can I do?”
“Wash the tomatoes.”
I took bread and cheese from the refrigerator. Adrian washed the tomatoes, found the cutting board only after I told him which cabinet held it, and waited until I passed him a knife.
“Mustard?” I asked.
He looked at me. “On mine. Never on yours.”
The answer came with the faintest edge of disbelief, familiar enough that I almost smiled. I set the mustard beside his plate.
We built sandwiches without speaking. He sliced the tomato thin because thick slices always pulled out with the first bite. I heated the skillet too quickly, as I always did. When the butter began to brown, Adrian reached toward the burner, then caught himself.
“Want me to get that?”
“Please.”
He adjusted the heat and moved away.
For several minutes, we worked with the old efficiency of people who had made hundreds of meals together. He passed me the spatula before I asked. I cut his sandwich diagonally and mine straight across. The knowledge had survived even when the household had not.
We sat at the little dining table. The shallow drawer beneath Adrian’s side was still partly open from when I had taken out napkins. Silver caught the light inside it.
LENA ASHFORD.
BABY ASHFORD.
My wedding ring lay between the two place cards.
Adrian saw them. His hand stopped beside his plate.
“Would you like me to close the drawer?” he asked.
I reached across and closed it myself. “No. I’ve got it.”
He returned his attention to lunch. He did not ask about the ring or touch the drawer again.
“The cabinet looks good,” I said.
“It follows the instructions.”
“You used to consider instructions a personal insult.”
“Only badly written ones.”
“You once rebuilt an entire bookcase because you refused to look at page three.”
“The diagram was misleading.”
“The diagram was a rectangle.”
His mouth curved. Mine did too before I could decide whether it should.
The small ease of it unsettled me more than an apology would have. I knew how to resist grand gestures. I had less practice defending myself against the life we had actually been good at.
Something shifted low in my abdomen.
I set down my sandwich.
No pain came with it. The sensation was like the light brush of a fingertip from inside, so faint I might have dismissed it if the doctor had not told me what to notice.
“Lena?”
The movement came again.
“The baby.”
Adrian went still. “What happened?”
“I think the baby moved.”
His eyes dropped to my stomach, but his hands stayed flat on the table.
Another flutter answered before I could think. I stood, caught Adrian by the wrist, and placed his palm low against my abdomen.
The contact silenced the room.
His hand was warm through my shirt. Mine remained over it. His fingers flexed once beneath mine, then went still.
“Can I keep my hand here?” he asked.
“Yes.”
We waited.
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then a small, definite nudge met the center of his palm.
Adrian’s face opened. There was no polished control in it, no careful restraint. Wonder and grief arrived together, as they had in the examination room, but this time his eyes stayed on mine.
“Was that—”
“Yes.”
My hand was still covering his. I could feel his pulse beneath my fingers.
We stood close enough that his sweater brushed the front of my shirt when he breathed, close enough for the clean scent of his skin to summon the weight of that body over mine.
The private attention had never been false. His gaze moved to my mouth.
He did not lean in.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
Every part of the old marriage knew how to answer. I wanted the familiar warmth of him, the moment when thinking stopped and his mouth made the world smaller.
Wanting was not the decision.
“No.”
Adrian removed his hand and stepped back at once.
“Okay.”
He picked up his plate and carried it to the sink.
“We still need to anchor the cabinet,” he said. “Do you want to finish?”
“Yes.”
We returned to the smaller bedroom. He held the cabinet level while I marked the wall and used the screws from my blue tin.
One screw rolled beneath the cabinet. Adrian lay flat to retrieve it and came back with dust in his hair. When I asked him to move the left door by a fraction, he moved it.
At twelve fifty-five, he gathered the cardboard and asked where I kept the recycling. At one, the room was swept, the cabinet was secure, and his shoes were at the front door.
“Thank you for the help,” I said.
“Thank you for letting me come.”
He left without asking when he could return.
I watched his car disappear at the end of the street. The cottage still felt safe after he left.
Ten minutes later, a former client called about a portrait session for her new blended family. She wanted the photographs taken outdoors the following Sunday, before her oldest child left for camp. I checked the weather, the light, and my calendar, then agreed.
Mara replied to my message a few minutes later.
I can’t assist that day. I’m sorry. I can help you find someone.
I looked toward the smaller bedroom. The cabinet stood under the window exactly where I had asked Adrian to put it.
Then I opened our messages.
Are you available next Sunday afternoon? I need someone to carry equipment and hold a reflector during a family portrait session. You would be working under my direction.
His answer came before I could put down the phone.
Yes. Tell me where and when.