“I’m waiting on a mountain of tenters and hooks,” Alex remarks, setting plates on the kitchen table next to containers of lunchmeat sandwiches, macaroni salad, potato salad, and pink salad—wobbly pink strawberry Jell-O with Cool Whip—all of your basic salads. A Sunoco bag is half concealed behind a sugar canister.
I turn. “Hmm?”
“Your verdict on the house.” He hands me silverware. “What do you think?”
“It feels so much like you.” I can’t stop taking it all in. “It’s perfect.”
He smiles, gratified. “Are you a kitchen-table-eater or a couch-eater?” I ask, shifting awkwardly with my plate and glass of iced tea.
“Romina, what kind of host do you take me for? We eatfoodhere.”
“Har har. You’ve got the dad jokes down pat.”
He grins. “C’mon, we eat on the couch.”
I hardly taste my food, I’m still so topsy-turvy from entering his fortress at last, finding it nothing like I expected, everything like Ishouldhave expected. I’m awash with a curious, impossible concoction of jumping-out-of-my-skin-antsy and bone-deep comfortable, like I’ve been here before. My heart peers around and says,I know this place.
Before I take a bite, I notice a shelf stocked with puzzles and have to jump up to inspect them. “Hey, I’ve got this one!” I tap the side of a cardboard box. “You have more puzzles than I do. Impressive.”
“I like the thousand-piece ones that are mostly sky and grass, for the challenge.”
“I have a Lisa Frank collection. Got them with Luna at Caesar Creek Flea Market.”
“I like flea markets. We’ll have to go sometime.”
I can’t force myself to sit back down. I’m taking inventory of Miles’s toys, what interests him—dogs, LEGO playsets, monster trucks, a toy shopping cart with its basket full of dented plastic food. I think of a Fisher-Price child-size kitchen set in the thrift store window, and mentally insert it in the empty space along one kitchen wall, below a calendar scribbled with upcoming activities. With all that toy food, I bet Miles would like a place to cook it. My magic senses a strong, steady thrum: This is where love lives.
“You’re a wonderful father,” I say, pensive.
He’s surprised by this comment but pleased. “Thank you. I’m definitely not perfect, but I do my best.”
If Alex were any other man, I would save this line of questioning until we’d been together for six months or longer. But I need answers now. I’m not getting any deeper until I know. I try to adopt a casual tone. “We’ve talked a little about family life, what we envision. But I think we need to speak clearly so that there’s no room for confusion. Do you want more kids?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I’d like to have about two more.”
“Or three?”
He laughs. “Maybe. Depends on where I’m living someday, the size of the house.”
I wander to a window, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Where might this imaginary someday house be? In Moonville?”
Arms wrap around my waist, a chin settling on top of my head. “Do you know the place out past the old tobacco barnwhere all the yellow trees grow, and the road is shaped like an S?” He traces the letter into my back.
“Yes.” I shiver. He presses against me, lips to my neck, stubble a light scrape. My eyelids drift shut.
“There.”
I almost stop breathing. “Are there any houses over there?”
“One that I know of. It’s a little small, but I could build on. Give it dormers, French doors, lots of natural light.”
I can picture myself out there where the road twists into an S, weaving between yellow trees with my bucket of chicken feed, silkies at my heels. I can visualize a garden that stretches on and on, rosebushes twined around apple trees, honeysuckle climbing birdhouses, bird feeders and witch bells dangling from ancient sugar maples. Alex and I biking through the woods, taking our kids camping, kayaking on Raccoon Creek. Winding down at night with a cup of tea, murmuring softly about our day over a puzzle. Losing at Scrabble. Winning at Monopoly, then indulging him when he insists on a rematch. Hanging a charm bag from his rearview mirror so that my protection follows Alex wherever the road goes. Celebrating many more Beltanes to come, around a bonfire, with Luna, Ash, and Zelda. Kristin, Daniel, Trevor. Miles. And other faces I haven’t met, their identities scattered among the stars.
Someday, when I am a mother again, I want to have a partner who instills in our children that they can do anything, be whoever they want to be. So that they can go out into the world and make it their own, and whenever they come home to us, they will know—I can open up this door and walk right into love. I will walk into acceptance, unconditional support. I know my parents love me for me, whoever I am. Our home will be the place you go to be wrappedup in a radiant love that never ends. We’ll watch them grow up together, becoming whoever they’re meant to be. Guiding them along the way but not trying to force them in any particular direction. Kind, silly, empathetic humans who I hope will light candles in every window on the Snow Moon, carrying on the traditions I learned from my grandmother.
His mouth travels to my ear. He whispers, “What do you think?”
“I think it sounds like you reached into my head and looked at my dreams.” I turn toward him. “What doyouthink?”
