“I measured it for Buddy specifically. Mary sent me his dimensions.”
“His dimensions.”
“Length, height, preferred sleeping position. She was very thorough.”
I pressed my hand against my mouth because I was either going to laugh or cry and I wasn’t sure which. Both, probably.
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean it.”
That night the estate was quiet. The dogs were settled in the kennels, the cats asleep on their perches, and I was standing in the second-floor hallway between two bedroom doors with my hand on my belly and my heart doing things I hadn’t authorized.
Finneas was behind me carrying my bag. He set it down in front of the guest room he’d prepared, the door already open. Clean sheets, fresh towels, a vase of peonies on the nightstand. The room was warm, the bed was made, everything new and untouched.
“This one is yours,” he said. “Mine is down the hall.”
I looked at his door, maybe thirty feet away, then back at mine. Thirty feet. The last time I lived in this house there were zero feet between us because I slept in his bed with his arm around my waist and his heartbeat under my ear. Now there was a hallway and two closed doors and a co-parenting arrangement I set the terms of myself.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay.”
He carried my bag inside and set it on the bed. “Extra blankets in the closet. The bathroom has everything. If you need anything...”
“I know where the kitchen is, Finneas.”
“Right.” He paused. “There’s also a bell system if you need something in the middle of the night. One of the staff...”
“If you installed a bell system for me, I will find it and I will destroy it.”
His mouth twitched. “It was already here.”
“Mmhm.”
He stood in my doorway filling it up the way he filled every doorway, shoulder to shoulder, and I could see the effort in his face. The wanting. His eyes moved from my face to the bed behind me and back to my face and his jaw was tight with the discipline of staying where he was.
I remembered what it was like to have him cross that distance. His hands in my hair, his mouth on my throat, the weight of him pressing me into the mattress. I remembered and I filed it away and I did not think about the thirty feet of hallway between us.
“Goodnight, Andrea.”
“Goodnight.”
He pulled the door closed behind him. I listened to his footsteps down the hall, measured, slow, like he was giving himself time to turn back. His door opened at the far end. Closed.
I sat on the edge of the bed. The peonies on the nightstand smelled sweet. Nothing in this room was his except the flowers, chosen because he knew they were my favorite.
The baby fluttered against my palm. I closed my eyes and saw the reading nook, the warm light, the window seat with space for a dog beside it. All of it built by a man who listened to every word I ever said, even the ones I whispered to a stray on a porch at midnight.
“I am in so much trouble,” I whispered to the dark room.
Thirty feet between our doors. Co-parenting only. The walls were holding.
Barely.
36
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Finneas
