“I wonder how Mom is,” she says casually. It’s not a false coolness, either—just an easy, unbothered musing.
I shrug. It’s hard to believe there was a time that this simple statement from Tegan would’ve sent me into a tailspin. But now I know that for Tegan and me, Mom will always be an absent presence, a person who’ll get huger and more damaging to us if we never acknowledge to each other that she’s out there.
“I hope okay,” I say, and I mean it. I hope she is okay, doing whatever it is she does.
For now, hoping that seems like a huge achievement.
“Yeah,” Tegan says, yawning.
I sit with her for a few minutes while sleep takes over, and soon enough, she’s snoring softly. I probably shouldn’t have let her get so far gone, should’ve nudged her toward her bed. But this couch is nice and she looks cozy here under the blanket, by the tree. She’ll probably wake up in a few hours and shuffle to bed. She’ll probably sleep until noon tomorrow.
Howam I going to stall Adam on my own untilnoontomorrow?
Maybe we’ll go out for pancakes. He loves pancakes.
I stand, shutting off the overhead sink light in the kitchen, my side pinching with discomfort when I stretch to close a partially open cabinet door.
I bet Adam is asleep.
Surely he’s asleep, right?
I move quietly down the hallway to the bedroom, and open the door so, so carefully.
And he is not asleep. He’s sitting up in our bed—the California king he moved all the way from Boston—a book held in his big hands. As soon as I come inside, he closes it and sets it on the nightstand. Then he clasps those hands in his lap and looks straight at me.
Dammit.
“Show me,” he says.
I lift my chin. “I don’t know what you mean.”
His lips quirk.
“Jess.”
“How do youknow?”
The quirk turns into more of a grin.
“You’ve been favoring your right side.”
“Maybe I fell! Hurt myself, or something.”
“You also left cling film on the shelf in the bathroom.”
I blink at him, then my shoulders sag. I drop my face into my hands.
“How am I sobadat this?”
I hear him move from the bed, and then he’s standing before me, pulling my hands gently away from my face. When I look up, he’s still got that triumphant grin.
“Maybe you’re not bad at it. Maybe I’m just that good.”
I blow out an exasperated breath.
“Observant,” he adds. “A hawk.”
I can’t help but laugh.
