“You called a radio show to ask a stranger whether you should block your ex. You already know the answer. You’ve known it eight months. You’re not calling for advice. You’re calling for permission.” I lean in. “So here it is. Block the number. You have permission. Go to sleep.”
He laughs, caught out. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah.”
The last call is two voices on one line, a husband and wife passing the phone back and forth, cutting in over each other.
“He wants to retire,” she says. “We can’t afford it.”
“We can if we’re careful,” he says. “She wants to work till we’re ninety.”
“I want to not eat cat food at eighty,” she says.
“Okay.” I get them both quiet. “Can I tell you what I think you’re actually fighting about? Because it isn’t the spreadsheet.” I wait until neither of them fills the gap. “Sir, you’re scared that if you don’t stop now, you’ll run out of good years to enjoy not working. Ma’am, you’re scared that if you stop too soon, you’ll spend those same good years lying awake about money. You’re both trying to protect the exact same thing. You’re just scared of losing it from opposite directions.”
Quiet on the line. Then the wife, smaller, “Well. When you put it that way.”
“Put the spreadsheet away tonight. Tomorrow, you plan the life, not the money. The money serves the life. Never the other way around.”
Bex fades the outro. The light goes dark. Paige is already on her feet, phone out, three clips trimmed before I’ve got the cans off.
“The one about you leaving, it’s going to push out numbers to a whole new level,” she says without looking me. “I just posted it.”
“Course you did.”
“It’s good, Dad.” She glances up, one second, no more. “It’s really good.” Then she’s back in her phone, and that’s how I know she meant it.
Josie’s asleep on the couch when I get home. Her reading glasses are still on, a book open and tented on her chest, one bare foot hanging off the cushion. The lamp lays warm light across her face.
I crouch by the couch and take her glasses off first, careful at the ears. I close the book over my thumb to keep her page, set it spine-up on the table. I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and lay it over her legs.
She stirs without opening her eyes. “Hmm. You’re home.”
“Go back to sleep.”
Her hand comes up, finds my collar, and pulls. I let her bring me down. She kisses me slow and three-quarters asleep, her mouth soft, no hurry in it.
“Show’s good. I miss spending the evenings with you though.”
“I’ll always be waiting for you.”
I sit down on the floor beside the couch, my back against the cushions, close enough that her arm drapes over my shoulder. Her fingers find my hair. I close my eyes and let her keep them there.
NINE
Noah called me over because a rail on the crib is loose, which means he could have fixed it himself in ten minutes but wanted the company instead. I didn’t say so. I grabbed the toolbox and came.
Peyton lets me in, sleeves shoved to the elbows, a baby smell coming off her. “Nursery,” she says, already heading back the way she came. “I’ve got Jace and Juniper playing bumper cars in the kitchen. Noah’s with Maverick and a screwdriver. Go help him.”
I take the stairs two at a time and find Noah on the floor with Maverick on one knee, a hex key in his free hand, scowling at the rail. Two of the screws have backed themselves halfway out. It’s Jace’s bed, and I don’t remember exactly when Josie said the boys stopped sharing, but this one definitely has more wear and tear than Maverick’s.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey,” I say, as I drop down across from him and open the toolbox. The boys’ room is a nice size although I think they’ll outgrow it by the time they’re in middle school. Through the bathroom, Junie has her own princess palace.
Instead of building a brand new house, which I expected them to do, they remodeled a craftsman. When the house next door went on the market, Noah and Peyton purchased that as well, had property lines adjusted, and turned the other house into a rental.
“Hand me the long one,” I say.
He passes me the screwdriver and holds the rail steady with two fingers while holding a squirming Maverick against his shoulder.
