They stood for a second in silence before Maeve said, “You’d better come in.”
Brodie went into the house. Zoey watched his every step.
Maeve waved a hand at the clutter in the corridor and said, “Excuse the mess, I haven’t been home—” Brodie noticed that her cheeks were flushed again, realized she wasn’t immune to the tension pulsing in the air.
He shook his head to say the mess didn’t matter and glanced around, but barely took it in other than some mismatched furnishings and piles of washing on the stairs. When they got into the kitchen, the table was covered in tiny colored beads.
Zoey sat down, one leg crossed underneath her and said, “We’re making bracelets.”
“Nice,” Brodie replied, dazed by all the glittery paraphernalia; the thread, the beads, the charms—all scattered over the red-checked tablecloth. He thought of the clean lines of his Malibu beach house, the white sofas and the minimalist surfaces.
He glanced up at Maeve and caught her watching him. Her beautiful heart-shaped face and deep brown eyes were now like a painting—distant from him, untouchable.
“Take a seat,” she said, moving some medical textbooks from a spare chair round the table. “Can I get you a drink? Coffee? Glass of wine?”
It was painfully polite.
Brodie sat in the rickety wooden chair and said, “Just a glass of water, please.” His mouth was very dry.
In the homespun kitchen, surrounded by kid stuff, colorful plastic beakers on the drainboard and unopened mail piled up on the countertop, he had the thought that hehad stepped unwittingly onto the wrong stage, that he would be ushered away any minute, directed to where he really belonged.
Maeve went to pour him a glass of water and when she placed it on the table in front of him and sat down opposite said, “Zoey, honey, why don’t you go and watch TV?”
“No, you said we could make bracelets.” Zoey frowned. “I’ve been waiting all day.”
Brodie watched Maeve rub her forehead. She looked more tired than before, dark circles under her eyes. But he couldn’t feel sorry for her. Right then, he wasn’t sure hecould decipher a single coherent feeling from the tangle in his head.
Zoey tucked her hair behind her ears, and looking at Brodie said, “Do you want to make a bracelet?”
“Sure,” he replied.
She handed him the thread.
Sitting at the table, it felt like there was an abyss of sharks and creatures of the deep beneath him, but Zoey’s presence meant he was balancing precariously on the surface, pretending not to look down.
“You make a knot at the end then you just start threading, like this,” Zoey held up one that she’d made earlier. All purple and pink with a tiny silver starfish charm.
“I like that,” Brodie said admiringly while his stomach clenched and he wondered if he might be sick. He went to pick up a bead and tried to concentrate on threading it on the string. He remembered doing the same with his sister as kids.
Opposite him, Maeve picked up a bracelet that she’d obviously been making before he got there and appeared to be focused on threading white beads. She wouldn’t look at him. Zoey was concentrating intently on hers, too, tongue between her teeth as she worked.
Brodie kicked Maeve under the table to get her attention.
Her head shot up.
He raised his eyebrows.
She raised hers back as if to say,what?
He did a sharp nod in the direction of the kid then pointed to himself.
He watched Maeve roll her lips together as she contemplated. Then after what looked like a steadying breath, she gave a tiny nod.
The world paused.
Brodie lost time. Who knew if he was breathing. He almost laughed thinking,lucky there’s a doctor in the house.
His head tightened. His face got hot. He wondered if he might pass out. He felt an overwhelming urge to correct her, to look around and see if all his brothers were about to pop out and laugh at the joke, to wind back time and make Maeve do something other than nod.
