“How was your day?” He almost sounds like his old self.
He doesn’t look like his old self, though. He’s wearing his hair a little longer these days, brushing the collar of his recently purchased Italian leather coat. Plus he’s lost the ten pounds that crept on over the past decade, and then some.
“My day was fine. How was yours?”
“Fine. Where are the girls?”
“It’s Tuesday.” Which means nothing to him. “It’s Shannon’s volunteer day at the animal shelter, and Sabrina has tennis, and Samantha has dance.”
“Until when?”
“Five--thirty.”
“All three?”
“Yes. You can pick up Shannon and Sabrina. I’ll get Sam and take her to a drive--through because she has CCD at six--fifteen.”
Silence from Kevin as the electronic door lowers itself.
That he doesn’t protest carpool duty is a good sign. That he doesn’t agree . . . not so much.
They step into the house. Goliath trots into the kitchen, wagging his tail at his long--lost master, who gives him a cursory pat. Noreen opens the patio door to let the dog out into the fenced yard, wishing she could kick Kevin out after him. She really wasn’t in the mood for him right now.
“As long as no one’s home for a change, I think we should sit down and talk.”
“No one is ever home,” she points out as he trails her to the hall closet. “Including you.”
“I’ve been at the hospital non--stop.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“What? I have.”
“I didn’t say you haven’t. I said mmm hmm.”
They take turns hanging their coats and return to the kitchen. “What do you want to talk about?” she asks, resigned.
“Logistics.”
“Are you planning military maneuvers? Invading a small country?”
“You’re quite the comedienne.”
“And you’re quite the wordsmith.”
He opens the fridge, removes a bottle of coconut water, and closes it without asking her if she wants anything.
She opens it, pointedly takes another bottle of coconut water, and closes it.
They sit facing each other at the table. She waits for him to speak, since he started this. All of it.
He clears his throat. “We need to figure out when we’re going to tell the kids.”
“I thought we already decided to wait until Sean gets home.”
“Right, but when?”
“Do you want to make an appointment? Is that it?” she asks. “Calendar too crowded? Maybe you can squeeze us in between tennis and your massage.”
“I haven’t had a massage in weeks.”
“Sorry, my mistake.” Seeing Goliath at the patio door, she gets up to let him back into the house.
“His paws are muddy,” Kevin observes, even as she reaches for the towel she keeps in a basket beside the door to wipe the dog’s paws.
After a pause, he goes back to the matter at hand: deciding when they should break the bad news to their kids.
“I just think the sooner, the better. That’s all I’m saying.”
That isn’t all he’s saying, unfortunately. He goes on talking, and it’s clear that he can’t wait to get this separation out in the open so that he can move on.
As if he hasn’t already.
Noreen’s phone buzzes with an incoming text. She pulls it out of her pocket. It’s from her sister.
Ignoring it for now, she asks Kevin, “What are you suggesting? Do you want to meet Sean’s plane on the runway when it touches down and shout the news through a bullhorn, or . . . ?”
“Why are you so sarcastic all the time?”
Why are you such a jackass?
Her phone buzzes again. She checks. Rowan, desperately needing to talk.
Why does everyone suddenly need to talk now, when all she wants is to be left alone?
“When do you think we should tell them?” Kevin is asking.
“After Christmas. Let’s let them have that, at least.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? Pretending everything is okay and then dropping a bombshell on them the morning after?”
“I think it’s better than ruining Christmas.”