“Keep them closed,” she says.
She pulls her hands away and places them on the arms of the chair, and even with his eyes closed he can sense her shadow over him as she lowers her head toward his. When she kisses him, his head moves slightly, involuntarily, and she brings her hand to the side of his face, but the kiss itself is gentle, lingering, her lips warm, tasting of something both of them had eaten earlier in the day.
Then she says, “What do you think happened to Claire?”
He is still absorbing her kiss.
“I don’t know. I’ve thought of a thousand things. Why did you kiss me like that?”
But she smiles and shakes her head, and then takes the baby from him.
“Good night, Marc.”
*
The next morning, she is again the young woman who first came through the door, and he has slept later than he usually does, and she and Tom and Kathleen are finishing their coffee and English muffins when he walks into the dining room, the suitcases already sitting at the front door.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Joline says, her eyes bright. “Up late?”
“Yeah, a little.”
Tom says, “I took the liberty of starting a fire. Hope I didn’t overheat the place.”
“It feels nice and warm,” Marc says.
Kathleen’s expression is difficult to read.
“They have to leave a little earlier than planned,” she says. “Tom has to work on a project for tomorrow morning.”
“A call came in before you woke up,” he said. “Not the big deal they’re making it, but gotta put a little Sunday-evening time in.”
They sit with Marc at the table for maybe fifteen minutes out of politeness. The baby is awake, and her occasional coos, her wide-eyed accidental smiles, her clutching of Kathleen’s pinkie finger, occupy both Kathleen and Joline, and neither gives him much more than a glance. Tom has pushed his chair away from the table and leans back and watches with an expression of halfhearted amusement. It gets better, kid, Marc wants to say to him, but doesn’t.
At the back door, while Tom brushes away the snow blown onto the windshield, Marc stands with Joline and Kathleen while they say good-bye. Kathleen gives her a long hug, and Joline lets her mother hold the baby one more time.
“Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll be back before you know it. Or come down and visit us before the real estate business cranks up.”
They chat a bit more while Marc carries the suitcases to the car. Tom lifts them into the trunk but leaves the lid up and glances at Marc with a half smile.
“So I understand you and Joline had a little late-night conversation.”
“She tell you that?”
“No. I woke up and saw she’d taken Laura down with her.”
“Yeah. She let me hold her for a while.”
“She likes it here. The baby, I mean. Joline, too. It’s peaceful. We’re in an apartment on a busy street. Weekends get pretty rowdy with the college kids. We’ll have to move once Laura starts walking.”
Tom lifts his hand to the lid of the trunk.
“So Joline tell you her life story?”
Marc glances into his eyes, and then shakes his head and looks down at the ground.
“No? Well, she’s pretty free with it. I know more of it than you probably think.”
Tom slams the lid of the trunk, and then puts an arm around Marc and gives him a fast hug.
“Thanks for having us out. I’d like to come out again soon.”
“You’re welcome anytime.”
Joline walks with Kathleen out to the car. For the first time that morning, Joline looks fully into his face, and then she reaches for him and gives him a tight hug, the warmth of her body coming through even her winter coat. She pulls away slightly, with her hands still at his waist, looks at him, and then hugs him again.
She turns away for the baby without saying anything to him, and then gives her mother a kiss on the cheek and one final good-bye before walking to the car, settling the baby in her car seat, and joining Tom inside. They wave as they pull away.
Back indoors, the day brightening the rooms with a pale March sun as they both clear the dishes from the table, Kathleen says to him, “I guess it was a nice visit. Yesterday was a little hard.”
“It was good to have them here,” he says. He knows they will speak about it later, and perhaps Kathleen will call her son, Jon, and tell him about her conversation with Joline and ask about his marriage. And then afterward, Kathleen will come out of the bedroom and sit in the chair where Joline sat last night, and they’ll talk it over for a while. “She’s an interesting young woman,” he says.
“Interesting?” Kathleen lifts an eyebrow and gives him a half-cocked smile.