Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Natalie
By the end of November, the dining room table is covered in river paintings and I have developed strong feelings about caption placement. The older children are home for a teacher workday, and Adam has booked the afternoon off.
Lucy understands this. Owen considers it a waste of a table.
“We could eat here if you moved your paper.”
“We can eat in the kitchen.”
“But the kitchen’s smaller.”
“Yes.”
He studies a photograph of a frozen river. “Is that a shark?”
“It’s a log.”
“You should make it a shark.”
“I’ll suggest it.”
He goes away satisfied. I write a note about a missing artist credit and realize that I have been working for forty minutes without apologizing to anyone for occupying space.
Adam arrives with Benji, whom he has collected from Juniper House after his morning there.
We visited together before accepting the place.
Loretta walked us through their collection routine, showed us the room, and answered my questions without trying to reassure me out of asking them.
I still check the app too often. I still arrive early.
But Benji reaches for her now, and that helps.
Adam sets the diaper bag beside the door and lifts him out of the carrier.
“He ate the pears. Rejected the carrots on principle.”
“Good judgment,” Lucy says from the couch.
“He also tried to eat a book.”
“Less good,” I say.
Benji sees me and reaches. Adam hands him over without hesitation, then takes the empty bottles to the sink. A month ago that exchange would have ended with him asking where to put everything. Now he opens the dishwasher, moves a saucepan that is blocking the lower rack, and starts loading.
I notice that he puts the bottles in the wrong place. I open my mouth, then close it. There is nothing wrong with the place. It simply isn’t where I put them.
“We need groceries,” I say.
“I can go.”
“We need the big shop. And Lucy needs a coat. She says the sleeves on hers are trying to strangle her.”
“They are,” Lucy calls.
“We could all go,” Adam says.
The suggestion should not feel risky. It is Costco, not a second honeymoon. Still, I look at him before agreeing.
“All right.”
The parking lot is full. Owen claims he is starving despite the crackers he has just eaten, and Lucy objects to the available coats before we are through the entrance.
Adam carries Benji in the chest carrier while I take the cart.
The baby leans back to look at the ceiling lights as if we have brought him to a private performance.
“Where first?” Adam asks.
“Coats.”
Lucy leads us with the grim determination of a person attending a sentencing.
There are three colors. She hates all of them. Adam holds up a purple one and says it looks warm. She says warmth isn’t the only thing a coat is supposed to do. I am about to explain the household budget when he looks at the label and frowns.
“This one’s haunted.”
Lucy stares at him. “What?”
“Look. Ghost insulation.”
“That says goose.”
“Does it? That’s a relief. Ghosts would be noisy.”
She tries not to smile. He holds the sleeves for her, and she puts it on. The purple looks lovely against her hair. I almost say so, but Adam catches my eye and gives the smallest shake of his head.
“Does it strangle you?” he asks.
“No.”
“Useful quality.”
She looks in the mirror, turns, and eventually says it will do. Adam folds it into the cart without celebrating. I love him for knowing when to stop, and the thought catches me so abruptly that I turn toward a display of socks.
We split up for ten minutes. He takes Owen to find muffins while Lucy helps me choose fruit.
Without a six-year-old climbing on the cart and a baby beginning to fuss, I can actually compare prices.
Lucy tells me about a disagreement with Maddie at school.
I listen to the whole story instead of catching fragments between instructions to someone else.
When the boys return, Owen is carrying muffins large enough to qualify as a building material. Benji is chewing the edge of Adam’s shirt.
“He’s hungry,” I say.
“Bottle’s ready. I was going to find somewhere to sit.”
“I can...”
Adam waits, and I hear myself.
“You can,” I finish. “We’ll be near the paper towels.”
He nods and goes toward the food court. I stand still for a moment, holding the list. Lucy asks whether we need toilet paper too.
“Yes,” I say. “Thank you.”
By the time Adam returns, Benji has milk on his chin and is blinking sleepily. Adam’s shirt has a damp patch near the shoulder. He puts the bottle into the insulated bag and asks what is left.
“Dish soap. Coffee.”
“I know where the coffee is.”
“I should hope so.”
“It’s how I find my way through unfamiliar buildings.”
Owen insists on pushing the cart for the final aisle. We progress at the speed of an injured beetle, clipping a display of cereal on the way. Adam catches the box that falls, replaces it, and shows him how to turn wider.
At the checkout, I am trying to remember whether I put gas in the car when Adam takes my hand.
He does it while answering Owen’s question about the muffins. His palm is warm, his thumb rough where a small crack has formed beside the nail. I look down at our fingers and stop hearing the conversation for a second.
He notices. His grip loosens.
“Okay?”
I nod.
He keeps holding it. Nothing else happens. The line moves, Lucy adds batteries to the conveyor belt, and I remember that I once used to reach for this hand without deciding whether I was ready for what it meant.
In the parking lot, Benji starts crying while we buckle everyone in.
Owen has opened the muffins and dropped crumbs down his coat.
Lucy says the back seat smells like a sandwich someone forgot, which turns out to be accurate.
Adam retrieves a lunch container from beneath the seat and opens it before I can stop him.
He closes it immediately.
“How long?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“What did it used to be?”
“I wouldn’t get attached to finding out.”
He carries it to a garbage bin. When he returns, he looks over the roof of the car at me and starts laughing. I do too, quietly at first, then hard enough that Owen demands to know what’s funny.
“Your father opened something he shouldn’t have.”
“Was it a present?”
“Not a good one,” Adam says.
On the drive home, Benji falls asleep and the older children eat muffins. I look at Adam in the passenger seat, one knee angled toward me, his hand resting loosely on his knee. There is dried milk on the shoulder of his shirt. I want to touch his cheek.
Instead I ask him to turn down the radio so we don’t wake the baby.
At home, we unload together. He puts the paper towels on the garage shelf and helps Owen hang up his coat.
Lucy carries the cold things into the kitchen.
For ten minutes the house seems to work without me supervising every movement, and I feel such sudden relief that I have to stop beside the pantry.
Adam finds me there.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
He waits.
“I didn’t realize how tired I was.”
His expression changes. He doesn’t reach for me, although I think he wants to.
“Go sit down. I’ll finish.”
“There are frozen things.”
“I know what a freezer is.”
I smile faintly. “You’ve been introduced.”
“Recently. We got along.”
I go to the couch. Lucy is reading in her room, Owen is building with blocks on the rug, and Benji sleeps upstairs after a careful transfer. Adam joins me when the groceries are put away. He sits at the other end, leaving space between us.
For a while we say nothing. Owen mutters to himself over the blocks. Outside, someone is using a leaf blower. The dishwasher starts its low rush in the kitchen.
“This is nice,” Adam says.
I rest my head against the back of the couch. “Yes.”
He looks at my hand on the cushion but doesn’t take it. I could move it toward him. I leave it where it is.
That evening, the ease wears thin.
Benji refuses his second nap. Lucy remembers a project due the next morning.
Owen spills flour while helping with dinner and cries when Adam tries to clean his sleeve with a wet cloth.
I hear myself becoming sharp, telling everyone to move, telling Adam the bowls go on the other shelf even though I had decided earlier that I didn’t care.
He sets the bowl down.
“Do you want me to finish this, or do you want it done exactly the way you do it?”
The room goes quiet enough for me to hear the accusation in both possible answers.
“I want not to have to explain it.”
“I understand that. But I haven’t asked. I’m putting bowls away.”
He is right, and being right makes him briefly unbearable.
“Fine.”
“Natalie.”
“I’m tired.”
“I know. Go upstairs. I’ll bring him when he needs you.”
I almost ask why he thinks I can simply walk away. Then I look at his face. He is tired too. There is flour on his sleeve, and Benji is pulling at his collar, and he has stayed.
I go upstairs and sit on the bed without turning on the light.
Ten minutes later, I hear Adam reading Owen’s school book below me. He gets a voice wrong and is corrected. A cupboard closes. Lucy asks him to sign something. He says he needs to read it first.
I lie back and let my eyes close.
When I come down, the bowls are on the shelf where he put them. I leave them there.
“I’m sorry I snapped,” I say when the children are out of earshot.
He nods. “I don’t want us to start being afraid to tell each other something’s annoying.”
“That could keep us busy.”
“I’ve got time.”
I look at him, and he seems to understand why I don’t immediately smile.
“I’m trying to make sure I have time,” he says more carefully.
“That’s better.”
At nine, he puts on his coat. I suddenly hate the familiar motion, his arm reaching into a sleeve, the keys in his hand. For years I have watched it with a list of things to remember before he leaves. Tonight I want to ask him to stay because I want him beside me.
I don’t ask yet.
“Dinner tomorrow?” I say instead.
He looks up. “I’d like that.”
“And bring the book you promised Lucy.”
“Already in the car.”
I walk him to the door. When he bends to kiss my cheek, I let him, and afterward I stand for a moment with my hand against the place his mouth has been.
Beth calls while I’m taking off my makeup. I put her on speaker and tell her about Costco, leaving out the part where I stood by the door touching my face.
“You voluntarily took three children there?” she asks.
“We needed groceries.”
“So do I. That’s why I send my husband with a list and refuse to answer questions about cheese.”
“It was actually nice.”
She goes quiet for a moment. “Good.”
“I thought you’d have more to say.”
“Do you want me to?”
I wipe beneath my eye, considering. “I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll tell you I bought the wrong size shoes for my own child today. In the store. While he was wearing them.”
“How?”
“He said they fit. I believed him. Apparently he meant they fit his plans for being taller.”
I laugh, and she tells me about the argument in the parking lot, and for a while we talk about ordinary things. When we hang up, I feel less obliged to decide what the afternoon means.
I go to bed in the middle of the mattress, as I have since Adam left. A few minutes later I move back to my side. I am annoyed with myself for doing it, but not enough to move again.