“My pleasure,” Libby says politely. “Just bring me the plate when you’re through.”
I like the thought of there being a reason to walk across the street and ring the bell at Libby’s house on another day. “Certainly.”
I swing the front door open and Libby turns around before stepping across the threshold. “If you need anything, anything at all, do come right on over.” Her gaze is tight on me.
“I will, thank you,” I reply, deflecting the concern. I don’t want Libby thinking of me that way, as a troubled woman who’s made a bad decision and who might need an escape route someday. “And please do the same if you should need anything. I would be happy to watch little Timmy if you ever need me to.”
Libby offers a noncommittal smile, perhaps wondering, what would I know about taking care of babies when I’ve only been a mother to a five-year-old, and for less than a month? I watch as Libby, with Timmy in her arms, crosses the street and enters her own house—a large brick structure on a sloped, landscaped lot—before closing my front door.
I look down at Kat standing next to me.
“That was nice, wasn’t it? Making new friends?”
Kat says nothing, but she is close enough to me to lay her head against my hip for a moment, as if to say the experience had been exhausting.
7
Not long after Libby’s visit, Martin arrives home from several days on the road. He looks tired, out of sorts, and I ask him if he is feeling well. What should come across as simple concern from a spouse seems meddling somehow. He tells me in a clipped tone that he is fine.
I don’t need to be told twice to mind my own affairs.
I make us a supper of roast beef and roasted turnips and carrots and serve the last of Libby’s petits fours for dessert.
“Kat and I had company on Thursday,” I say as I place two little cakes on a plate in front of Martin.
I tell him about meeting Libby and Timmy and that she brought the sweets and we had tea together. I wait to see if he will ask what Libby and I talked about. He does not.
Martin either doesn’t care that I might’ve told the neighbor across the street how very strange our marriage is, or perhaps heassumes I would never divulge our personal business to a person I’d only just met. This thought makes me chuckle out loud because, of course, I’d married someone I’d only just met.
He looks up at me when I laugh.
“I just thought of something funny.” He doesn’t ask what it is. “She’s very nice,” I continue. “Perhaps we can invite her and her husband over for supper sometime?”
Martin swallows the bit of cake he has in his mouth. “I don’t want you making plans for me when I’m not here to discuss them with you.” The clipped tone from before is gone. He says this without a hint of anger. But with no kindness, either.
“I didn’t suggest that to her. I am suggesting it to you now. I haven’t planned anything.”
My husband wipes his mouth with his napkin. “No.” His voice is calm.
“No, we can’t invite them over for dinner sometime?”
“I don’t want to entertain guests during the little time I have here at the house.”
He rises from his chair and heads to the library to work, as he does every night he is home. When it’s time for Kat to go to bed, I bring her into the library so that he can wish her sweet dreams. He does so with his head bent over papers.
As I take Kat upstairs, I tell her that sometimes when fathers are unhappy they keep all their feelings wedged deep inside so that they don’t have to talk about why they are sad. I figure she will understand that. When I tuck her under the covers I sing a little Gaelic lullaby my gram used to sing to me. The words mean nothing to Kat, and little to me. After all these years I can’t quite remember the English translation. But when I am done, Kat murmurs the first word I have heard from her in several days.
“More?”
So I sing it again.
•••
The next morning Martin packs his valise and is gone.
In the afternoon I decide to return Libby’s cake plate. I dress Kat in one of her prettier frocks since this is to be almost like a social call—at least I hope it will feel like one—and together we leave the house.
“Perhaps we can stay for a little bit and you can play with Timmy. Would you like that?” I ask Kat as we walk across the street.
