Valerie looks at him, alarmed. Then, ignoring everything she believes, all that she knows to be right, she responds by pulling him to her in the embrace she has imagined so many times. After several seconds, he takes control, slowly lowering her to the couch, covering her with the weight of his body as their legs entangle, their cheeks touch.
After a long time like this, Valerie closes her eyes and lets herself drift off, lulled by his steady breathing, the feel of his arms encircling her, and their chests rising and falling, together. Until suddenly, she is awakened by Eminem’s “Slim Shady,” the ring tone that Jason programmed into her phone just for his calls. Nick jolts in such a way that she can tell he fell asleep, too—the idea of which thrills her.
“Is that your phone?” he whispers, his breath warm in her ear.
“Yes. It’s Jason,” she tells him.
“Do you need to call him back?” Nick asks, repositioning her slightly, just enough to look in her eyes. He reaches out and touches her hairline, so tenderly and naturally that it feels as if they’ve been together like this a thousand times and done everything else, too.
“No,” she replies, hoping he won’t move away from her. Hoping he won’t move at all. “Not now.”
Another moment passes before he speaks again. “What time do you think it is?” he says.
She guesses nine, even though she believes it to be later. “Maybe ten,” she adds reluctantly, wanting to be truthful.
He sighs, then swings himself into an upright position, pulling her legs onto his lap before checking his watch. “Damn,” he mutters, shaking his sleeve back over his watch.
“What?” she says, looking up at him, admiring his profile, yearning to touch his lower lip.
“Ten after ten. I better get going,” he says, but does not move.
“Yes,” she says, processing what has just transpired, wondering what will follow. She can tell he is doing the same, asking himself all the same questions. Would they retreat or move forward? Could they do this thing they were on the verge of doing? Did they have it in them to make a wrong decision just because it felt right?
Nick stares ahead, then turns to look down at her, his eyes jet black in the dimly lit room. He holds her gaze, then her hand, as if to tell her that the answer, his answer anyway, is yes.
Then he stands and collects his coat from the closet. She watches him, still unable to move, until he comes to her, taking her hands in his, pulling her to her feet. Wordlessly, he leads her to the front door, which she unlocks and opens for him.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says, which has become a given. Then he hugs her hard, an upright version of their last embrace, his fingers cupping the back of her head, then running through her hair. They do not kiss, but they might as well, because in that silent moment, they both stop pretending.
23
Tessa
It is Thanksgiving morning, and I am in my kitchen, preparing dinner with my father’s wife, Diane, and Nick’s mother, Connie. In past years, the collaborative effort would have annoyed me, as much for Diane’s gourmet airs as my mother-inlaw’s tendency to usurp my kitchen. But this year, oddly enough, my first Thanksgiving as a stay-at-home mother, I feel no sense of ownership of the meal, and am actually grateful to be stationed at the sink, peeling potatoes, the least important task on the Thanksgiving totem pole. It occurs to me, as I stare out the window into our fenced backyard, that I might be depressed—not depression-commercial miserable where the women can’t get out of bed and look as if they’ve been beaten with a bag of rocks, but the kind of depressed that renders me unnerved, exhausted, and largely indifferent. Indifferent to whether we use rosemary or thyme to flavor the turkey. Indifferent that the children are running around in sweats instead of the matching chocolate-brown corduroy pants and jumper my mother sent. Indifferent to the fact that Nick worked late last night—again. And that we argued this morning—over nothing, really, which is the best kind of argument to have when a marriage is working, the worst when it’s not.
“Tessa, dear, please tell me you have white pepper,” Diane says, jolting me out of my thoughts with her usual sense of urgency and affected Jackie O accent. Earlier this week, she gave me a long list of ingredients for her various side dishes—but white pepper was not among them.
“I think we do,” I say, pointing toward the pantry. “Should be on the second shelf.”