I sigh. “Yes. I want that.” Whatever “normal” is without worryingabout Taylor crying over Frank. Or the Kid going completely silent. Or Daphne trying so hard to smile even as her eyes betray her heartbreak. I don’t want to think about Liz and the kids who died, just for a few hours. Because I’m going to be thinking of them forever.
Jamie steps closer and pulls my chin so I’m looking up at him. He kisses me gently, slipping a hand around to my lower back and pulling me against him.
The world goes quiet and all I hear is my heartbeat in my ears. I imagine it keeping time with his.
When he pulls away, he keeps his forehead against mine, our noses touching.
“It isn’t abnormal for us to disagree about something. Couples disagree all the time.”
They disagree about what to eat and where to go, not how to rebuild a family.
“Then I just want to ignore one aspect of our normal relationship for the day,” I say.
“C’mon.” He takes my hand and continues walking. “When my mom came home after a particularly bad day at the hospital, she’d call me down to the kitchen. And we’d sit at the kitchen table and go back and forth naming one thing we were happy to have in our lives. It was never the days when the ER was just busy. It was the days when she lost more patients than she knew how to handle. This was all before the superflu, I mean. When that hit, the game stopped working.”
“Repressing our emotions doesn’t feel very healthy.”
“It depends how long we repress them. If we do it for only one day, then it’s just taking a break from the more intense emotions. Giving us time to rest.”
I’m not sure if that’s enough to make me feel better about all the people who died in the storm—so far they’ve counted 273 people missing on that side of the school. But it’s enough to feel a little better about everything else. About Jamie not wanting to stay here and live a safe life—though maybe he was right, given the events of the last few days.
Shit. I do need this game. But I also need him to get me started.
“So what are you grateful for?”
He takes a second to think, then looks up at the afternoon sky. “The sunshine.”
“Starting broad.”
“I find it’s best to think macro when things look like...” He gestures to the destroyed road before us, leading me around a fallen magnolia tree.
“Noted. My turn? I’m grateful for...” I take the time to look around, trying to find something. “I guess I’m grateful climate change will be slowed now that there are fewer people to destroy the earth.”
“Flag on the play.”
“I don’t understand sports metaphors, sweetie.”
“Use your context clues. You can’t be grateful for something that requires cynicism. Find something else.”
“Fine, I’m grateful for cynicism.” He glares at me. “Okay! Okay. I’m grateful... Can it be something I’mgoingto be grateful for?”
“Sure.”
“I’m grateful I won’t smell bad soon.” I pull my T-shirt up to my nose and pretend to retch.
“I’m actually grateful for that, too.”
I nudge him. “You love my musk.”
“That’s not musk, it’smurk.”
I laugh and remind him it’s his turn.
“I’m...” He pauses as we reach the beach. The sand is packed down and debris-ridden from the storm. We walk halfway to the shore, then sit down in the sand and take off our shoes and socks. “I’m grateful that we’re here.”
I look over at him, wondering if he means alive or in the Keys. Maybe he’s had a change of heart. But I don’t want to ask because it’s breaking our rule. We’re ignoring our real problems today and finding what we’re grateful for.
He leans over and kisses me, putting his hand gently on my jaw.
