"Her words, not mine." Charlotte twirled pasta around her fork. "Apparently, I talk about you too much. She's staging an intervention."
"Should I be offended or flattered?"
"Probably both." She grinned. "I told her you were very secure in your masculinity and could handle a few hours without me."
"I can handle more than a few hours. I handled fifteen years without you."
"And look how well that turned out."
"Touché."
I loved this about us, the easy banter, the way we could move from tender to teasing without missing a beat. We'd earned this comfort. Built it from scratch after the accident, after the memory loss, after all the ways the universe had tried to keep us apart.
"I was thinking of going to the apartment tomorrow night," Charlotte added, watching my face carefully. "Just to decompress. Read a book that isn't about neurodegenerative diseases. Maybe take a bath that lasts longer than ten minutes."
"You don't have to ask permission."
"I'm not asking permission. I'm communicating." She pointed her fork at me. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Absolutely. Asking permission implies I need your approval. Communicating means I respect you enough to keep you in the loop." She smiled. "Therapist's words, not mine."
"Our therapist is very smart."
"Our therapist is annoyingly right about most things."
This was the balance we'd found, the rhythm that made our marriage work. Charlotte kept her apartment near her mother's place, a small retreat she could escape to when she needed space that was entirely hers.
At first, I'd worried it meant something was wrong, that she needed distance from me. But I'd learned, slowly, that distance wasn't abandonment. It was sustainability. It was how love lasted when life was complicated.
"Take the whole weekend if you need it," I said. "I'll survive."
"Will you?"
"I'll order takeout and watch documentaries about sharks. Very sophisticated bachelor behavior."
"Very sophisticated." She reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. "I'll be back Sunday afternoon. We can have dinner. Something that doesn't involve combat cooking."
"Deal."
After dinner, we moved to the front porch as the sun began its descent. The sky was painted in washes of lavender and gold, the air carrying the cool promise of approaching autumn.
I settled onto the porch swing I'd installed last month, a project that had taken me three weeks and resulted in two smashed thumbs and many, very creative strings of profanity.
Charlotte curled up beside me, tucking her legs beneath her and resting her head on my shoulder. I put my arm around her, my hand settling on her waist. The tremor was still there, a constant gentle vibration against the soft fabric of her sweater.
She didn't tense or pull away. She just nestled closer, as if the tremor was simply another part of my touch.
The swing creaked softly as we rocked. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked twice and fell silent. Crickets were beginning their evening symphony, and the last golden light caught the silver threads in Charlotte's hair.
"This is nice," she said quietly.
"It is."
"We should do this more often. Just sit."
"We sit all the time."
