It had taken a few months, but the second-floor walk-up in the little brownstone had come together, slowly but surely.
A riot of color and life, a marriage of all their interests, the second bedroom housing his instruments and her practice barre, the overflow closet for them both, and the home office he worked from two days a week. Color and life and movement, for they were nevernotcoming or going from someplace else, sometimes barely passing in the doorway as they did so.
On Mondays, she had ballet, and he had band practice. She stayed in Cambric Creek after work, eating an early dinner,poking in and out of the shops until her ballet class. Sometimes Dynah met her before class, and it was nearly like old times. She would bring home dessert from a Sylvan-owned café, a flaky circle of dough stuffed with a lightly sweetened cream cheese, full of dried fruit that had been steeped in orange blossom essence. It was like nothing they had found at any of the human-owned places in Bridgeton, and they’d share it at the kitchen table once they were both home.
On Tuesdays he had therapy. It was her night to cook, and Ris would make a point of having dinner ready to plate when he came home, a story from her day already forming on her lips, a movie queued up on the streaming service or a quasi-educational show about ancient aliens, something light and distracting, something that gave him the space to not talk, if he didn’t want to.
He often didn’t want to.
Wednesdays were his work-from-home days, his turn to make dinner, their night to spend together. They went to the movies, poetry readings at the coffee and wine cellar near their apartment, low-key mid-week concerts. Other weeks, they stayed home and caught up on laundry, snuggled on the sofa. It was a pause point in their busy schedules, much needed and always appreciated.
She had picked up the pottery drop-in on Thursdays while he was at band practice, and then sometimes, his own drop-in to a grief support group afterward.
Ris already knew that band rehearsals occasionally turned into post-rehearsal beers, beers turning into someone explaining why their last break-up made them the de facto creative genius of the group. The lateness of his arrival home those nights was not a credible indicator that he'd been at the support group. He didn’t go every week, and he never talked about it when he did, but Ris could still tell on those nights.
On Fridays, he worked from home again, their official pizza and a movie night.
“I can’t help but notice you have no issue with my penny-pinching magic when it benefits you,” he’d pointed out, not long after the trip to buy the bookshelves, sniffing that his free wi-fi was no different than his milk crates.
“The free wi-fi comes with working from home,” she pointed out, laughing. “You didn’t have to fight a family of raccoons for it next to the dumpster. Not the same.”
Weekends were spent at museums and the symphony, open-air markets in the warm months, street festivals and carnivals, and the film festival back in Cambric Creek, while these long winter months were spent working their way through cookbooks, making soup and baking bread.
They had book club and learned languages on an app with a bullying little bat as a mascot.
She cherished the moments when they were still, but Ris wouldn’t change a thing.
She had gotten used to holding him through the quiet evenings after his therapy sessions. Her physical presence kept him anchored, letting his mind work through whatever it was still chewing over, and she was glad to do it. Therapy had been one of her non-negotiables before she’d been willing to move a stick of furniture out of her condo, a condition upon which he had readily agreed.
Ris knew he was still grieving. Grief had become something he carried on his person wherever he went. Carefully, thoughtfully, as if it were fragile, like one of his instruments.
She tried her best to understand.
“You have to give him the time he needs,” her own therapist had said gently.
“I understand that,” she’d countered, her face hot, a small pile of crumpled tissues already beside her. “And Iwantto give himall the time he needs. I just . . . don’t know how long that is. I don’t have a frame of reference for any of this. I’m not going to lose my parents for a long time.”
“But surely there have been other people in your life,” the troll pushed back, voice still gentle. “Co-workers, neighbors. Family friends. Someone close to you who wasn’t a relative.”
It had been a mistake choosing the goblin. She liked the woman, but this wasn’t going to work. Ris had been thinking that for weeks already, but this was irrefutable proof.Finding the right therapist can be tricky.Back to the drawing board.
Shedidn’thave long-time family friends, neighbors, teachers who had died. Elves stayed in close-knit communities for this very reason.
“I don’t. That’s why elves live in enclaves,” she said bluntly.No sense in tiptoeing around it, and you already paid for the hour. “We’re taught from a young age not to get too close to outsiders. Yes, I made the decision to be in a relationship with someone who has a very different lifespan. No, I don’t understand everything he’s feeling. That’s why I’m here, so you can tell me.”
At that, the goblin nearly choked on her swallowed laughter. The small, green-skinned woman pulled off her glasses, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand, shoulders still shaking.
“You know, when I saw that I had an elf in the patient profile, I wondered how it would go,” she chuckled. “We don’t see too many of you in multi-species practices like this. And I guess that’s why.”
It was her turn to laugh.Okay, maybe you’re being too hasty. Give her a chance.“I just moved to Bridgeton from Cambric Creek,” she admitted. “Multi-species is what I’m used to. Honestly, I was just happy to find someone in the practice who wasn’t human.”
There were two goblins in this office, and every other therapist in the group was human.You’ll have to stay in Cambric Creekanother day of the week if this doesn’t work out.One more night without him, and he was the reason she’d gone back to therapy at all.
The Ainsley she had fallen in love with was gone.
He was still there, of course. Ainsley would always be Ainsley, and he sparkled even when he actively tried to avoid it, but there was a sadness that existed in him now. His sparkle was dimmer, his smiles more guarded.
When they met, he radiated joy with the exuberance of a puppy, but now . . . joy and trust were tentative things. Metered out, as if he might run out if he spent either foolishly. He had been forever fractured by the events of the previous year, a wall going up around his heart that hadn’t existed before, with a ghost taking up residence in a permanent seat at her kitchen table.
