There’ll be a few friends of Paul’s, and his cousins, and two of Lisette’s siblings. He still doesn’t speak to his mother, but she has found a place to live further down the coast, and makes a point of ignoring us, which we both appreciate.
And that’s it. My whole world is smaller now, but at the same time it feels completely full of people, because they are all the ones who will turn up no matter what.
Paul comes in from outside with some groceries in a couple of large shopping bags. He prefers to stop in at the local shop on his walk home from his school, and the groceries are often half-frozen by the time he gets them back into the house. It is close to four, so it is already getting dark here, and he shakes himself warm as he comes inside.
I stand up and take the bags out of his hands while he unpeels the long orange scarf that Lisette knitted for him. By the time I’ve put the groceries away in the kitchen, he is seated by the woodstove, his boots off, looking through a small pile of mail on the table.
I sit next to him, pressing my face to his cold neck, until he wraps an arm around my waist and kisses me, then slides his hands beneath my shirt.
“How are your hands still warm?” I kiss his cold cheeks. “That is medically impossible. Your entire face is frozen.”
He laughs. “The miracle of human chemistry.”
I kiss him until he decides to stand up to pull closed the curtains. Then I pull him back down onto the sofa next to me.
“Remember that time you kissed me while I was meditating,” he whispers.
“During the improv? I thought we agreed that you kissed me,” I say.
“I was just being polite.”
I laugh and crawl on top of him, determined to completely undermine his inner peace.
