‘But Noah, Ben, and the beers?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘I can do both.’ He moved to the window, holding back the lace curtain to peer outside. From this room in the old Victorian, he could see all the way down the water. ‘Do you ever think— Nah. We’ll talk about it later.’
‘Talk about what later?’ I turned away from the mirror. ‘You’re not allowed to start sentences like that and then say We’ll talk about it later.’
‘We come here a lot. We like this town. Right? There’s a festival every damn month.’ He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket. ‘Do you ever think we should take a look at moving here?’
Over the past year, our new family realized a couple of things. First, our house was a bit too small for us. It was fine though we had no breathing room whatsoever. Jude’s home office was in the basement, which wasn’t ideal, and Percy’s room was tight for a kid with a lot of books and a lot of stuffed animals—and an aging beagle-brother. But the real problem came down to all of us sharing one bathroom. That issue alone was enough to send me out on a house hunt.
We also realized there weren’t tons of kids in the neighborhood. Hardly any in Percy’s age range. Lots of babies, lots of teenagers. Not much in between. He had plenty of friends from school but playdates weren’t the same as neighborhood friends.
Another issue: it was much harder to bake at my regular volume when my kitchen also served as the site of at least two meals per day, homework, lesson planning and grading, and nearly all family business.
All of this meant something had to change. Either we found something new or took on a renovation project. But the market was a wild, terrifying beast and construction seemed like a nightmare.
Though we hadn’t considered leaving the Boston area for Rhode Island.
‘I’d have to leave my school. It’s too far to commute,’ I said. ‘And what about Jamie and Ruth? I love them, you know. Kind of a lot.’
‘Trust me, I know.’ He motioned to the tent outside, where tonight’s party would take place. ‘But you love Shay too. Kind of a lot. Plus, Emme and Ryan have been talking about building a new place down here when he retires.’
‘That would be a big change for Percy.’ I rolled the tube of lip color between my fingers. ‘And for me, too.’
‘Then it’s not right for us,’ he said. ‘Not now.’
I studied him for a moment, taking in the wide set of his shoulders, the collar open at his throat, and the thick, unruly waves of his hair. He seemed…settled in a way that I hadn’t noticed until now. Or perhaps I had noticed but attributed it to the ease that came with life being a little less difficult these days—save for the kid who seemed to think he’d get a free sandwich if he visited the ER enough times in a year.
Percy had loved kindergarten in Aurora’s class. Most of his peers had picked up enough ASL that he didn’t have to rely on the tablet to communicate. He was in Jamie’s class this year and we weren’t sure how he’d do with navigating Auntie Jamie versus Ms. Rouselle, though it hadn’t been much of a problem. And he adored her class. Could not say enough good things about first grade.
Janet was still healthy as could be. No recurrence. Percy and I baked a special loaf of bread before her quarterly PET scans and shipped it overnight so she’d have a little love from us to help her through. Later, we’d celebrate the all-clear on a video call. Gary from up the street always made an appearance.
And Janet’s good pal Rita was doing well too. Her lizard mosaic art still scared the crap out of me, though Percy thought it was wicked cool.
Brenda’s rehab following the surgery to repair her broken hip had been tough but she was fully recovered now and loving her memory care community. There were good days and bad days, of course, but it seemed like she was finally getting what she needed, and that made everything else better. We sent her special loaves of bread too, along with Percy’s baking videos. He was something of a showman when it came to telling folks what to do in the kitchen, and he loved editing the videos with his quippy little voiceovers.
My mother still called fairly often. She liked to pretend nothing had happened and would chatter on with breezy updates about my father and sister as if they weren’t my sworn enemies. At first, I’d hated everything about these calls—and Jude had side-eyed me pretty hard for taking them at all.
But I gradually noticed that she didn’t drop needless barbs or insults at me anymore. That she started asking questions about my work. She even made some polite, if not painfully stiff, inquiries about my ‘friend.’ That was obviously Jude, and I took a huge amount of smug joy in announcing he and his son had moved in with me.
There were no apologies but there wouldn’t be. That wasn’t how her world worked. But she hadn’t ripped into me for stringing Brecken along and embarrassing my father that way. And she hadn’t shrieked about the mess I’d make of my life by consorting with Jude. It wasn’t much but it was something.
I did know it was weird to take any of this as progress. I was aware that not verbally attacking me was the least she could do. But it was better than where we’d started, and that meant something to me.
‘I like the idea of not now,’ I said. ‘This isn’t the moment for us to make a big move, not with everything we have going on, but we’ll make it someday.’
‘We’ll focus on getting this kid through elementary school first,’ Jude said. ‘Finish the adoption too. That gives us plenty of time to decide whether you’d be happy teaching in the schools here and if we have enough insurance coverage for Percy to be in the same town as Gennie for more than a few days at a time.’
We’d started the adoption process over the past few months. Stunningly, Maddie had been the one to suggest it when we visited Saginaw in July. I didn’t have grounds for comparison but based on everything I’d heard from Jude, it seemed like Maddie had chilled out in a big way this year.
He said it was because she was in a serious relationship and didn’t have the time to invent new ways to torture him. I imagined some of that was true but also that she’d moved into a new season of grief. Regardless of which side was right, she’d been content to follow Jude’s lead on visitation. She flew out for Percy’s birthday weekend last September and again this year, and we visited with her in Saginaw the whole month of July. This seemed to give her what she needed.
She also enjoyed getting special deliveries of bread.
‘But in the meantime?’ I asked. ‘We’re still sharing one 1950s-era bathroom.’
‘My wife wants her own bathroom, so that’s what my wife will get,’ he said, laughing.
It’d taken some time but I found that I liked hearing him say that. The wife part, not the bathroom part. He knew more about the bridge troll in my belly than I wanted any non-medical professional to know but such was the life of a girl with an irritable gut. I had to admit it was kind of nice having someone—a husband, even—who wasn’t bothered by any of it and was always there to take care of me.
I wasn’t great at letting anyone take care of me. It still felt like a foreign concept. An invasion of sorts, almost. But I was getting better at letting him do it.
‘You went to all that trouble to build my basement ballet studio. I don’t want to leave that behind,’ I said.
‘Then we’ll add-on to the house.’
‘But construction,’ I said with a wince.
‘We’ll figure something out, Saunders, even if we have to move into a rental for a couple of months,’ he said. ‘Not an issue we’ll solve today. And the bride’s probably wondering where you are.’
I checked the time on my phone. ‘I have twenty minutes until we’re getting her into the dress.’
‘Does that mean you have twenty minutes to visit the sunflower-side of the barn with me?’
I grinned at him. ‘I thought you were going to find Ben, Noah, and the beers.’
‘They can wait,’ he said, reaching for my hand. ‘Your husband cannot.’
‘Oh, really?’ I crossed the room and laced my fingers with his. ‘Feeling nostalgic, are we?’
‘This dress brings back memories. I distinctly recall shoving my head under it.’ As I laughed, he added, ‘All I could think about was spending that night with you. I wanted to tell you everything. Just pour my fuckin’ heart out.’ He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulled me in close. ‘I was furious at how long the ceremony was. Ready to jump out of my seat, run up there, and snatch you away.’
‘It’s good that you managed that urge,’ I said flatly.
‘Mmm. Yeah. I didn’t even know how to explain that I loved you, that I’d never stopped loving you. That I’d waited a long time to get you back and it scared the shit out of me to think I wouldn’t be able to keep you.’ He lifted my hand to his lips, kissed the inside of my palm. ‘Instead of saying any of that, I fucked you against a barn.’
‘You told me eventually.’
He turned my hand over. His gaze dropped to my rings—the resin-cast violet on my pinkie and the pale purple stone seated on the finger beside it—and his expression softened. He stroked his thumb over the rings several times. A slow smile creased the corners of his eyes and dug lines into his cheeks. ‘Yeah, I did.’ He dropped a quick kiss on my lips. ‘Come on. Let’s see about that barn.’
