Tiny forgot every command he had ever learned.
He launched himself off my feet and thundered into the entryway, nails skidding on hardwood. Olivia barely got the door shut before one hundred and sixty pounds of dog hit her thighs with the force of a linebacker who believed love required impact.
“Oh my God.” She laughed, breathless, bracing one hand on the wall while the other dropped to his head. “Tiny. Baby. Hi. Yes, I know. I know. I abandoned you and ruined everything.”
His tail beat against the console table. A stack of mail slid sideways and spilled onto the floor.
I stood.
Olivia looked up over his head and saw me.
For a second, the years filled the room before the distance did.
She was still beautiful in the same precise, unshowy way. Dark blond hair twisted into a low knot that had started to loosen. Wool coat open over a black travel outfit. No makeup left except mascara shadowed faintly beneath her eyes. Her wedding ring caught the entryway light when she stroked Tiny’s ears.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
That was what five years of marriage had come down to sometimes. Two people in a doorway, careful with a greeting that used to be easy.
I crossed the room and took her suitcase from her before she could protest.
“Thanks.” She shifted the laptop bag higher on her shoulder, then seemed to remember she didn’t have to carry it inside her own house. She set it down by the bench and exhaled. “Flight was awful. There was a baby two rows back who made his feelings about air travel very clear.”
“Bags okay?”
“Eventually. Denver decided my suitcase needed a spiritual journey before returning it.”
Tiny pressed his head against her knee. She smiled down at him, tired and genuine. “At least one male in this house missed me.”
I felt that land.
Not sharp. Worse. Familiar.
“I missed you,” I said.
Her smile didn’t vanish, but it changed. Softer at the edges. Skeptical in the middle.
“Did you?”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
Olivia looked away first and bent to unzip her boots. Tiny tried to help by putting his nose directly in the way. She nudged him back with a knee. “Sir, I have been awake since four-thirty.”
“He’s not moved by that argument.”
“He never is.” She got one boot off, then the other, and lined them up neatly by the door. She had always done that. Even when we were living in apartments with bad heat and worse furniture, Olivia lined her shoes up like order could be built from the floor upward.
I carried her suitcase toward the bedroom.
“Leave it,” she said behind me. “I’ll unpack later.”
I stopped with my hand on the handle.
Later.
It sat there. A normal word, except nothing about tonight could stay normal if I had any decency left.
