CHAPTER TWO Sunday Morning Light
The farmers market became brunch, and brunch became one of those slow Sundays Maya usually loved.
Andre bought peaches from a vendor who insisted they had been picked the day before.
Maya found wildflowers in a dented metal bucket and carried them through the market like a bride who had wandered away from her ceremony.
They split a pastry at a sidewalk table, and Andre wiped powdered sugar from the corner of her mouth with his thumb.
"You know your mom asked me a question yesterday," he said.Maya narrowed her eyes.
"My mother asks everybody questions. That's how she gathers intelligence.
""This one was specific.""Oh no."He smiled into his coffee.
"She asked if I was wasting her daughter's good years.
"Maya covered her face. "I am so sorry.""I told her I wasn't planning to.
"Something about his tone made her look up.Andre did not seem nervous.
He rarely seemed nervous. But there was a softness around his mouth, a deliberate calm that made Maya's stomach flutter.
"What does that mean?" she asked."It means exactly what it sounds like.
""Andre.""Maya."She kicked him under the table.
He laughed."I'm not proposing next to a peach stand," he said.
"Relax.""I wasn't -""You were."She smiled, but the flutter inside her changed shape.
Marriage with Andre was not frightening because she doubted him.
It was frightening because saying yes to forever meant closing every imaginary door she had never admitted was still open.That thought irritated her.
There should not have been any open doors.Jalen had not earned one.On the drive home, Andre rested his hand on her thigh at a red light.
Maya looked out at palm trees bending against a cloudless sky and tried to imagine a wedding.
Andre in a tuxedo. Her mother crying before the ceremony even began.
Tasha, her best friend, giving a speech that would definitely contain something inappropriate.
A house with a yard. Maybe children, if they decided they wanted them before time made the decision for them.It was easy to see.That should have been enough.At home, Andre spent the afternoon at the dining table reviewing plans for a library renovation in Pasadena.
Maya worked on a pitch deck for a skincare client and answered emails she had promised herself she would ignore until Monday.Around four, her phone played an old song from a playlist she had not touched in years.The opening notes caught her so quickly she froze.Jalen's song.Not actually his, of course.
Just a slow R&B track they had played over and over in his car senior year.
It had been the soundtrack to late-night drives, arguments in parking lots, apologies at her front door, and promises made with the reckless certainty only teenagers could afford.Maya reached for the phone to skip it.Instead, she listened.The memory came whole.Jalen leaning against an old black Honda, one foot crossed over the other, smiling like he already knew she was going to forgive him.
Jalen calling her "May" when everyone else called her Maya.
Jalen showing up after basketball practice with sweat still drying at his temples.
Jalen holding her hand under the table at a school banquet because they had been arguing and he wanted to remind her they still belonged to each other.Belonged.That was the word that had kept her stuck for too long.
"You okay?"Andre's voice startled her.She turned.
He stood in the doorway with his glasses low on his nose.
"Yeah. Why?""You look like you just saw a ghost."Maya glanced at her phone.
The song was almost over."Old music," she said.
"Good old or bad old?"She considered the question.
"Both."Andre nodded as if that answer made sense.
"Dinner in an hour?""Perfect."He walked back to his plans without asking more.That was another thing about him.
Andre did not force doors open. He waited for Maya to invite him in.She stared at the screen long after the song ended.Years ago, after her final breakup with Jalen, Maya had deleted every photograph, every saved voicemail, every message thread.
She changed his contact name to DO NOT ANSWER before eventually deleting the number entirely.
She had blocked him on social media for a while, then quietly unblocked him once she believed she no longer cared.She had not searched his name in years.Her thumb hovered over the search bar now.Jalen Carter.It would take less than a second.She locked the phone instead.That night, Andre cooked salmon for himself and roasted vegetables for Maya, who had given up meat years before.
They ate on the balcony while traffic hummed below them and the sky turned violet.Andre told her about the library project.
Maya told him about her impossible client.They laughed.
They planned a trip to Santa Barbara. He asked whether she wanted to see a movie Friday.Normal things.Good things.Safe things.When Andre reached across the table and took her hand, Maya squeezed his fingers.She loved him.She was certain she did.But certainty, she would later learn, could live beside confusion for a very long time.