CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ROMAN
He stayed after her parents left.
They always talked about who’d stay and who’d go on an occasion-by-occasion basis. Today Nora said: stay and he stayed.
Felix fell asleep at seven-thirty, which was early, the specific sign of a child who’d spent the day performing for grandparents and had exhausted his reserves.
Roman and Nora sat at the kitchen table.
She’d made tea without asking. She’d made his exactly right, which she’d always done, which he’d taken for granted when they were married and understood now as a small, continuous act of attention.
She looked at him across the table.
She said: “My mother said you look at me like you’re afraid I’ll change my mind.”
He held his cup.
“She’s not wrong,” he said.
“Are you?” Nora said. “Afraid?”
He thought about the question.
“Not the way I used to be afraid,” he said. “Before, the fear was about whether I deserved the thing. Whether I was going to be found out as insufficient.” He looked at her. “Now the fear is just — the ordinary fear of something mattering enough to lose.” He paused. “That’s different.”
“It is different,” she said.
“You’re not going to change your mind,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Nora,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I need to tell you something,” he said. “And I need to say it plainly, without—” He stopped. “Without hedging it.”
“Tell me.”
He held her gaze.
“I love you,” he said. “I loved you when we were married and I didn’t hold it correctly and it cost us everything.
And I’ve spent two years understanding what correctly looks like — what it feels like to hold something with open hands instead of—” He stopped.
“Instead of as a threat to be managed.” He looked at her.
“I love you and I want the kitchen table and the Wednesday evenings and your parents at lunch and Felix saying my name wrong.” He breathed. “That’s what I have to say.”
She held his gaze.
She said: “I know.”
“Do you?” he said.
“I’ve known for months,” she said. “I’ve been watching you be in love with me from a careful distance for eight months.” She paused. “I needed to see it that long before I trusted it.”
He held very still.
“Do you trust it now?” he said.
She reached across the kitchen table.
She put her hand on his.
“Yes,” she said.
He turned his hand over and held hers.
The kitchen was quiet and warm.
Outside, the Brooklyn June was doing its thing — the warm evening, the street sounds, the specific quality of early summer in a city that earned it.
He thought: this is the life.
He thought: this is the actual life.
“I love you,” she said.
He breathed.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve known since November. I’ve been watching you decide whether to say it.”
She almost laughed.
“We’ve both been watching,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Ridiculous,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Entirely.”
She laughed.
He held her hand and listened to it.
He thought: there it is. There’s the whole thing.