She’s pursing her lips at me and tossing weeds into my pile. “He calls you when he has a fever. He wears the clothes you buy for him. He eats your food and asks for more. You make him comfortable. You make him feel at home. And—” She clears her throat. “I relied on him too much. To work. To take care of his brother. Growing up, he didn’t have a place to just…be. To feel at home.”
“Well.” I’m clearing my throat too. “Well, you don’t have to worry, Ma.” Mostly I call her Ramona. But every once in a while, because she’s old-school Italian and it delights her and it’s the way she thinks things oughta go, I call her Ma. “If he didn’t feel it when he was young, he’s gonna feel it when he’s old. I’ll make sure he gets taken care of. That he has a place to come home to and someone there who lets him rest. Even when we’re old and gray. Especially when we’re old and gray.”
“Ma. Iced tea?”
Both Ramona and I jump at Vin’s voice behind us. We were facing away from the house and didn’t hear him pad up to us through the grass.
“It’s in the fridge, dum-dum,” she says, fighting to her feet. “Where do you think I keep it? The toilet?”
He helps her to her feet and she heads off to rustle it up. And then he’s there, next to me, two hands on mine, pulling me to my feet. His eyes are bouncing between mine but I can’t tell if he heard our conversation or not.
Later, the three of us are sitting on the back porch, drinking iced tea and watching dachshunds frolic, when her phonerings. “Hi…Okay…Yes.” She hangs up. (This is where Vin learned his conversation skills, by the way.)
“Your brother is taking the bus in,” she tells Vin. “I’ll go get him from the depot.”
“Oh, he’s coming? What time?” Vin asks. “I’ll get him.”
She waves him off. “He gets in at four. But Loretta lives over there. I’ll stop in for a bit first.”
She heads to the sliding door. “Roz, do something with those tomatoes, will you?” She points to the patch in the corner of the yard. “See you at five.”
By “do something” she means pick them and then turn them into dinner, which, it won’t surprise you, sounds fun tome.
I finish my tea and head down there. I’m just washing a bowl of green and yellow and purple heirloom tomatoes in the sink when I hear Vin walk up behind me in the kitchen.
“I’m thinking linguine alla cecca. Your mom loves it and it’s pretty easy—”
I turn and drop a tomato.
Splat.
Because Vin is standing in the kitchen, hands in his pockets, with a freshly shaven face.
I try to say anything. Anything. But—
Instead, I just fling myself across the kitchen and jump into his arms. He catches me by the butt and laughs.
“It’s Vinny Green Eyes!”
Because here he is.Herehe is. My husband. The one I married. Vin of the jawline, Vin of the firm mouth, Vin of the smile, of the—yes! Smile lines. Smile lines, I see them now, outside the corners of his mouth and there, mirrored next to his eyes. He looks older without the beard and his face is fuller than the last time I saw it fully revealed. And I love it, I love it, I love it. Because he’s gotten older just like me and because he is so right. The reason we signed on the dotted line witheach other was so that we could have theprivilegeof these faces, only getting line-ier as time speeds on.
His eyes are squeezed closed. “It has been so long since you called me that,” he whispers.
“It has been so long since I’ve seen this face. Why’d you shave it?”
He sits me on the counter and uses his now-free hands to cup my face. “Because we’re growing old together. Changing together. It didn’t seem right to cover it. Besides. You didn’t kiss me on the mouth once since I grew that beard. And I’m really fucking sick of not kissing you on the mouth.”
Well, sometimes joy is so big it hurts.
To ease the passage of this enormous emotion, I do the only thing I can think of. I tug on his T-shirt and he bends to me. When our mouths connect, I make a groan so guttural that Vin stops kissing me to chuckle. But not for long. He presses my jaw, opens my mouth, firmly seeks out my feelings for him. He’s so warm and tastes like iced tea andhim.Like my big, safe man.
He turns the kiss gentle in a bossy way. We’re going his speed, whether I like it or not. And I do. I like everything. Any way he wants to give it to me.
He’s got one hand on the back of my neck, tilting me up to him. He’s kissing me softly but he’s pushing farther in with each slide. When I fully yield, he grunts and his forearm slides me forward on the counter. I wrap my legs around his hips and he grunts again. We’re twisting, I’m leaning, he’s holding us both up, thank God, because if it were up to me, I’d be free-falling.
He breaks from my lips to kiss at my neck but is almost immediately drawn back to my mouth. He’s warming me, petting me pliant. I’m soft as a fresh bloomed flower, and he’s trying to taste what’s at the center.
Well, maybe not completely soft, considering I’ve just started climbing him. His shirt is slipping, stretching under my fingers. I’ve got my arms around him so tight I’m trembling. Or maybe I’m trembling because he’s just sucked my bottom lip, lifted me off the counter, taken three steps, and pushed me up against the hallway wall.
