Epilogue
Adam
In March, Benji learns to pull himself up on the low shelf in the infant room.
He does it while Loretta is telling me about the missing mitten she found inside another child’s boot. One hand grips the shelf, the other reaches for a basket he has no business reaching. I cross the room before it tips and move it out of range.
He turns at my voice. His face changes, his mouth opening around a delighted sound, and he drops onto his bottom so he can crawl toward me.
“Careful,” I say, crouching.
He is not careful. He hits my knee with both hands and tries to climb. I lift him, and he settles against my shoulder with a fist wrapped in my collar.
“Busy day?” I ask him.
He tells me about it at length. None of the words are recognizable, but his opinion of the basket seems strong.
Loretta hands me the mitten. “He ate most of his lunch. Slept an hour and twenty minutes.”
“Any trouble with the new cup?”
“He likes dropping it. Drinking from it is still under consideration.”
“Same at home.”
I sign him out, collect the bag from his cubby, and check that the damp clothes are in the separate pocket. His spare sweater has come home three times this week with something different on it. I put the mitten into the coat pocket before he can throw it.
Outside, a cold wind lifts the edge of his hood. He turns his face into my neck, and I shelter him with my hand while we cross the parking lot.
There are things I notice without meaning to now. That he is tired by the way he presses his cheek against me. That he will fight the sleeve unless I offer him the other hand first. That a particular impatient grunt means he has dropped something he expects me to retrieve.
I buckle him into the car seat and hand him the soft book clipped to the strap. He opens it upside down, satisfied.
The school pickup line is already long. I join it, turn down the radio, and read a message from Natalie while the car is stationary.
Client call moved to five. About forty minutes. Can you still do dinner?
I answer yes, then put the phone away. Dinner is already thawing in the refrigerator. If the call takes longer, we will eat later or without her, whichever she prefers. We have learned to say those things before somebody is hungry and resentful.
Lucy comes out carrying a rolled painting. Owen has lost another tooth and needs to tell me exactly where the blood went. I listen to both stories on the drive home. At a red light, Lucy asks if I remember the name of the girl who moved into her class last month.
“Beatrice.”
“Bea,” she corrects. “She doesn’t like Beatrice.”
“Right. Bea.”
“She wants to come over.”
“We’ll check with Mom and her parents.”
“Mom said ask you because you’re home that afternoon.”
I glance at her in the mirror. She is looking out the window, apparently unaware that she has said something I will think about for the rest of the drive.
“Then we’ll ask her parents,” I say.
At home, Natalie meets us at the door with her hair clipped up and a pencil behind one ear. Benji reaches for her immediately. I hand him over while Owen begins the tooth story again, this time with sound effects.
“Did anyone else lose blood?” she asks.
“Only me.”
“Good. Narrow escape for the class.”
She kisses his head and studies Lucy’s painting while I take the bags inside. There is a new layout open on the dining table, this one for Marian’s studio booklet. Beside it lies a sheet of business cards, cut and ready to separate. I take one and put it in my wallet.
We moved my clothes back over Christmas, after talking to the children together.
Lucy asked whether that meant everything was fixed.
Natalie told her we were going to keep working on things, and I told her she could ask questions whenever she wanted.
Owen wanted to know whether I would still make the cat-police voices.
I told him yes. Apparently that was the provision he needed.
The first month back was harder than the dates.
There was no hotel room to retreat to when I was tired, no clear beginning and end to helping at the house.
I discovered that I still wanted praise for doing things Natalie had done for years.
She discovered that asking me to take over meant letting me do some of them differently.
We argued about bedtime one night while Owen listened from the stairs. I wanted to let him stay up to finish a game. Natalie had an early appointment with him the next morning and had already told him no. When she pointed that out, I started to say it was only fifteen minutes.
Then I saw Owen watching us.
I told him his mother and I needed to talk, and afterward I went upstairs and explained that bedtime hadn’t changed. He was annoyed. He got over it. Natalie and I took longer, but we had the conversation before morning instead of storing it for the next fight.
There have been work problems too. A report I underestimated. A client who assumed a meeting could move into the evening. Once, I called Natalie from the office and asked whether she could cover the pickup I had promised. She said she couldn’t.
I found another arrangement at work and left.
I am still learning how much of my old life depended on her never saying that word.
At five, she hands me Benji and goes into the office. I close the door behind her because the children are negotiating loudly over who gets which chair. Then I put the baby in his high chair and begin dinner.
Owen brings me the tooth in a tissue.
“Keep this safe.”
“Where’s the little box from school?”
“I put a rock in it.”
“Of course you did.”
I find an envelope, write his name on it, and put it well away from the stove. My phone rings. It is an unfamiliar number. I check the voicemail notification after it stops, see that it is a sales call, and return to the turkey browning in the pan.
Lucy comes in with her homework. She asks a question about fractions that I answer incorrectly before reading the instructions. She sighs, takes the pencil from me, and explains the method her teacher wants.
“Got it,” I say.
“Do you?”
“I think so. Show me the next one.”
She sits at the counter. Benji drops his spoon. Owen asks whether the tooth fairy pays more for a bloody tooth. The turkey begins to stick, and I reach for the spatula.
From the office, I hear Natalie laugh at something her client has said. I turn the heat down and keep stirring.
Natalie
When the call ends, I remain at my desk for a minute to make notes. Nobody has opened the door. Nobody has whispered that they only need one thing. I finish the last sentence, send the follow-up email, and close the laptop.
In the kitchen, Adam is cooking. Lucy sits beside him with her homework, arguing about an answer. Owen is arranging taco shells on a plate with the care of a museum curator. Benji is dropping pieces of food from the high chair and watching the floor with scientific interest.
“Sorry,” I say. “That ran long.”
“How did it go?” Adam asks.
“Good. They approved the sketches.”
He grins. “Excellent.”
I wash my hands and take a knife from the drawer. “What needs cutting?”
“Tomatoes, if you want. Or sit down.”
“I want to cut tomatoes.”
“Then those are your tomatoes.”
I stand beside him, our elbows occasionally touching while we work. He tells me about the mitten and the school stories. I ask Lucy about Bea. Owen interrupts to tell me the tooth fairy may need extra money because of the blood, a theory his father has apparently declined to confirm.
For a while the conversation is so ordinary that I almost miss how happy I am.
I still remember Halloween. Sometimes a glimpse of orange felt in a shop makes my stomach tighten before I know why. Adam knows that too. He doesn’t ask when I will be finished remembering. When I need to check something, he gives me the information without acting wounded that I asked.
A few weeks ago I saw Danielle in the supermarket. Theo was sitting in the cart, chewing the strap of her bag. We recognized each other at the same time and stopped beside the apples.
“How is he?” she asked, looking at Benji.
“Good. Getting into everything.”
“Theo too.”
We talked for a minute about teeth and sleep. I didn’t ask her to tell me it was all right. Before we parted, she touched Benji’s foot lightly and said he was getting big. I said the same about Theo. Then we went back to our shopping.
I was quiet that evening. Adam asked why, and I told him. He listened. We didn’t try to make the encounter into an ending.
At dinner, Lucy tells us that her painting is going on the school wall. Adam asks which one, and she describes it while he gets up to retrieve Benji’s spoon. Owen wants his tooth envelope beside his plate until I point out the likelihood of salsa getting on it.
“Would that lower the value?” he asks.
“I wouldn’t risk it,” I say.
Afterward, I take Benji upstairs while Adam clears the table with the older children. The baby’s pajamas are in the drawer where they belong. He fights me over the last snap, then rests his head against my shoulder with a sigh that makes the whole difficult day of being a baby seem behind him.
Adam comes in while I’m finding the book. He takes it from the shelf and sits in the chair, and Benji leans toward him.
I hand him over.
The ease of it catches me sometimes. My hands letting go. Adam’s arms ready. Our son turning comfortably from one of us to the other.
“Blue book?” Adam asks him.
Benji slaps the cover.
“Strong preference. All right.”
I leave them there and go to Lucy, who needs help with a braid she intends to sleep in so her hair will be wavy tomorrow. She tells me about a disagreement at school while I separate the strands. I resist offering a solution until she asks for one. Apparently the whole family is learning things.
By nine, the house is quiet. I find Adam on the couch with my book open in his hands.
“You’re ahead of me,” I say.
“Only a chapter.”
“Don’t tell me.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He moves his arm, and I sit beside him. I have a studio visit in the morning, then lunch with Beth while she is in town. Adam has the school pickup. We checked the calendar after dinner, discussed the one conflict, and worked it out. There is nothing left to arrange tonight.
I lean against him. He kisses my hair and asks if I want the light left on so I can read.
“In a minute.”
He closes the book. I put my hand over his, feeling the familiar shape of his fingers beneath mine. Upstairs, a floorboard settles. The refrigerator starts. Someone’s car passes outside and sends a brief wash of light across the ceiling.
“Stay here,” I murmur when he shifts.
“I was reaching for the blanket.”
“Oh.”
He pulls it over us, tucking the edge around my feet. I laugh softly and settle closer. There is no suitcase by the door, no departure to count backward from. In the morning we will get up and do all the ordinary things again.
I take the book from his lap and open it between us. He waits while I find my place.
THE END