"God, no. My fine motor skills are questionable on a good day." He held up his hands in surrender, the slight tremor visible in his fingers. "Continue your rampage. I'll supervise from a safe distance."
This was us now. Cooking together in his parents' kitchen with “Near Wild Heaven” playing from his phone, me teaching him recipes that were good for his health while he made terrible puns about vegetables.
It was homely in a way I'd never experienced in my marriage… not practiced, not going through the motions, but genuine partnership. Two people figuring out how to take care of each other.
"The turmeric is anti-inflammatory," I said, sprinkling the golden powder into the pot of lentils and vegetables. "Good for your brain. The ginger helps with absorption."
"You're turning me into a science experiment."
"A well-nourished science experiment." I tasted the soup and nodded approvingly. "Hand me the salt?"
He passed it to me, his hand steadier than it had been a week ago. The routine helped, regular meals, consistent medication, and the simple fact of not being alone in the dark. I'd set up reminders on his phone for every dose, gentle chimes that made him roll his eyes but never miss a pill.
"You know," he said, watching me stir, "I never thought I'd find someone adding turmeric to everything romantic."
"It's extremely romantic. I'm seasoning you toward longevity."
"That might be the least sexy sentence anyone has ever said to me."
"You're welcome."
He laughed, and I felt my heart flutter. This was what happiness felt like. Not the desperate, performing-for-an-audience happiness I'd tried to manufacture in my marriage. Just... this. Soup, teary onion eyes, and our laughs harmonizing.
The kitchen had stopped feeling like a museum. Miles had started opening the boxes on his own, finally, sorting through his parents' things with me by his side. We'd found his mother's secret stash of romance novels hidden in a cabinet above the refrigerator.
"I knew about these," he'd admitted, holding up a paperback with a shirtless pirate on the cover. "She made me promise never to tell my father."
"Did you?"
"Never. Some secrets are sacred." He'd smiled at the memory, something soft and sad in his eyes. "She was this incredibly dignified prosecutor. Terrified witnesses on the stand. And she had a collection of books with titles like 'The Pirate's Passionate Embrace.'"
"I love her," I'd said, and meant it.
We kept the romance novels. They were on a shelf in the living room now, next to his father's legal texts. It seemed rightsomehow, all the pieces of who his parents really were, finally allowed to exist together.
The evenings had become my favorite part. When I came from work, after dinner, after the dishes were done, Miles would guide me to the couch with gentle hands on my shoulders.
"Sit," he'd say, the same way he'd said it the first night.
"I should help clean up?—"
"Sit." He'd point at the cushions. "You just worked twelve hours. Let me do something nice for you."
"You made dinner. That was nice."
"I supervised dinner. You made dinner. I provided moral support and bad jokes." His hands would find the knots in my shoulders, working at them with focused determination. "Now stop arguing and accept being taken care of for five minutes."
His fingers trembled slightly, the evening dose wearing thin, but his touch was sure and warm. He'd learned where I carried my stress, the specific spots that needed attention after a long shift. I suspected he'd researched it. Probably watched tutorials. That was Miles: if he was going to do something, he was going to do it thoroughly.
"You're getting good at this," I murmured on the third night, my eyes half-closed with relief.
"I'm a quick learner." I could tell he was smiling from his voice. "Also, I watched approximately forty YouTube tutorials. So really, the internet is getting good at this. I'm just the hands."
"Very good hands."
"They have their moments."
The tremor in his fingers was there, constant but gentle. He didn't try to hide it anymore, and I didn't pretend not to notice. It was just part of him now… part of us. Something we acknowledged without making it the whole story.
