“We’ll get some,” Tom said.
There wasn’t any rush.
When it was very late, and they were only awake because they were both a little afraid of waking up in a new day, Tom said, “I’m done with comics afterThursdayends.”
“I know,” Cherry said.
“No. I mean... I don’t want to draw anything else. I don’t want to make anything new.”
His hand was curved between her belly and her hip. His head was on her shoulder.
Cherry kissed the top of his head. “You can be done.”
“What will I do?”
“Walk Stevie,” she said. “Make gingerbread cookies. Let me bring home the bacon.”
Tom snorted. He rubbed his face into her shoulder.
“I don’t believe you’re done,” Cherry whispered, “but you can be.”
Chapter 67
Tom had to leave in two weeks.
He had to be back in Los Angeles for the movie premiere, even though he still wasn’t planning to go to the premiere itself, and then on to New York City for promo. They’d booked him onGood Morning AmericaandThe View.And they wanted him to do one of those YouTube shows where you eat chicken on camera. He’d told his new publicist—Michelle—that he’d rather eat gravel.
He brought his suitcase home from his dad’s house. And a box full of clothes that Cherry didn’t trust because she didn’t know their provenance. (The Pendleton sweater was a gift from his sister.) He still had things to bring home from Los Angeles. He’d bought a car there. And he had to break his lease in Pasadena.
Tom had phone calls all the time. And Zoom calls. He took them in the living room, with Stevie lying at his feet.
The meetings made his eyes go flat and faraway. Sometimes he still looked that way when Cherry got home from work.
Cherry almostdidn’tgo back to work... She certainly didn’thaveto. And Tom being home made every day feel like a holiday. “The trains will run without you,” he told her that first Monday morning when her alarm went off.
It was tempting...
But work had been Cherry’s lifeline for the last year. She wasn’t letting go now.
Besides, what would Cherry do in the house all day? Watch Tomwork? Make curtains? (She’d already run out of windows.) The thought made her itch.
The truth was—Cherry had spent so long worrying about what she’d do if Tom got fired, she couldn’t quite trust thefreight carsof money he was earning now. She needed to work.
On those nights when she came home and Tom’s eyes had gone dead, Cherry would crowd him against the wall or crawl on top of him where he sat, kissing and nosing at him, looking for signs of life. If his wrist had fit into her mouth, she would have held it between her teeth.
Cherry still didn’t know how to rescue him, but she wanted him to know she was there.
Also, she still didn’t have any pride. She hadn’t found any over the last year. Cherry loved Tom too much, and she showed him too much.
And once she’d decided to forgive him, her heart was wide open to him. (Probably this was why she’d held him off for so long.)
They didn’t put anything back on the shelves or the walls. Tom didn’t bring home the rest of the boxes from his dad’s house. They were in an in-between place, and they both knew it. They were both afraid to jinx it. They ignored the empty spaces.
Tom bought new sketchbooks and left them on the coffee table and in the bathroom. Cherry watched him doodle while he talked on the phone.
He drew Stevie mostly. Walking on two legs and wearing clothes. Taking Zoom calls. Applying to college.
Sometimes he drew Baby—doing something that Cherry had been doing, but doing it more comically than Cherry ever would. Cherry dropped half a plate of garbanzo-bean spaghetti, and Tom drew Baby with spaghetti in her hair and on her nose.
