“You’re wearing heels,” he said, making a curious face at Cherry.
“Yeah, I felt like being tall today.”
“They don’t hurt your back?”
“Not when I’m sitting. Are those new shelves?”
He looked up at them. “Yeah, I got the gardening stuff all sorted. It should be easier for you to find things.”
“Oh, I forgot about this...” Cherry pointed at a huge blue willow vase on one of the top shelves. They’d bought it at a garage sale.
“We never figured out where to put it,” Tom said.
“Well, it’s so big...”
“Cool, though,” he said.
“It is.”
Tom looked over at her. “You’re in a good mood this week.”
Cherry laughed and shook her head. “Am I?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. I guess things are going my way.”
“I’m glad,” Tom said.
“Thanks.”
Russ had Liam for the weekend, so he and Cherry crammed in one more night together on Thursday, even though Russ had some complicated problem to manage for the mayor. He was on the phone for hours. Cherry waited on his couch and tried to read a book on her phone, but ended up writing work emails and scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest.
When Russ was finally done, he crawled to Cherry on his knees toapologize. She laughed. She told him not to be offended but that next time she was bringing over her embroidery hoop.
He crawled between her knees and up her skirt.
Tom wasn’t at the house when Cherry got home on Friday, but neither was Stevie. They were probably on a walk.
Cherry kicked off her shoes. Then she noticed the blue willow vase sitting in a corner of the foyer—holding a huge arrangement of dried flowers and grasses, probably from the yard. Pampas grass. Panicle hydrangea. Some sort of branch with red berries. Tom had always been good at arranging flowers. (Tom could make anything look good.) This was striking.
It didn’t escape Cherry’s notice that he was supposed to be moving thingsoutof the house, not in. But she took the arrangement for what she guessed it was—a peace offering.
She texted him.“Nice flowers.”
He texted back,“;)”
“Are you guys on your way out or on your way back?”
“Just at the park.”
“If I order Indian,”she asked,“will you pick it up?”
“Yep.”
“Do you want me to order something for you? Lamb vindaloo?”
Tom didn’t reply right away. Cherry called the order in. She got naan. And samosas. And mulligatawny soup. She was hungry. She set her phone down and went into the dining room to clear some space... Maybe she could make some headway in the house over the weekend, while Russ was busy. Maybe Cherry didn’t have to be sorigorousabout everything. Maybe Stacia was right—Cherry could just start boxing things up to deal with after she got a new place, when the memories would be less sharp.
