He laughed softly in the shadows. “I wish that had crossed my mind.”
“You’re not the first man to see his former wife and experience discomfort. It doesn’t mean anything other than that you’re human.”
“Being human can be a problem.”
“You’re happy,” Molly said, “right?”
She instantly regretted the doubt that had crept into her voice. Or maybe only she had heard it.
“Hell, yes, I’m happy.”
The bedsprings whined and she felt his hand brush her cheek, then gently caress her breast through the oversized white T-shirt she slept in. She was aware of a tightening deep inside her and her breathing quickened. The T-shirt was wound around her body so that much of its excess was pinned beneath her. Across its chest, distorted by the twisted fabric, it was lettered FOR SLEEP OR SEX. She’d received it at a bridal shower as a gag gift, but she found it practical and comfortable. The thin cotton strained and stretched, and David’s hand was beneath the shirt and sliding slowly toward her left breast. His breath was warm in her ear, then his tongue.
“Wait a second, please!” she breathed.
“What’s wrong, Mol?”
“Nothing. Really.”
He withdrew his hand and she swiveled on the mattress and stood up. The firm wood floor felt cool beneath her bare feet. She pulled the T-shirt over her head and tossed it in a twisted, pale heap on a chair. Then she slid her panties down to her ankles and stepped daintily out of them, as if relieving herself of shackles. Sounds from the street were filtering in through the screen, cars swishing past outside, faint voices shouting blocks away, the throbbing bass beat of a car radio that faded quickly, a distant siren making exuberant loops of sound. The sheer white curtains swayed slightly in the faint breeze as if in a slow, ghostly dance. She left the window open and switched on the air conditioner mounted in the window alongside it.
When she was sixteen, her father had left her mother and her for another woman. Her mother died two years later, and Molly had never quite escaped the notion that the terrible stress of the desertion had triggered the cancer. Her father had left his new lover, and a few years ago had remarried, to a woman named Verna who owned an art gallery in Detroit. Molly wasn’t sure if she’d ever forgiven him, or if she fully understood what forces had moved him. Had there been something lacking in her mother? In herself?
She tried to shake such thoughts from her mind and returned to David’s shadowed and patiently waiting form on the bed.
David moved close to her. “What’s wrong, Mol? Still thinking about Deirdre?” He kissed her neck. “Well, I’m not. Like she said, the past is buried and dead.”
Molly lay very still. “My past with you has been my happiest time.”
“Mine, too,” David whispered.
“Men leave women,” she said softly. “I know it’s unreasonable of me to think that way, and it’s because of my childhood, but it’s the kind of thing that inundates the mind and changes things forever. That’s how I feel and I can’t help it. Men leave women.”
She felt the backs of his knuckles lightly caress her cheek. “Not this man, Mol. Not ever.”
She turned to him and they kissed, and his hand found the small of her back and pressed her to him. She could feel his erection hard against her thigh.
“Try not to wake Michael,” she heard herself say.
But it was she who moaned and cried out, clinging possessively to him as they made love.
In the morning, while David showered, she made coffee and stuck two slices of whole-kernel wheat bread in the toaster.
He came into the kitchen and kissed her, dripping water from his hair still damp from the shower. Neither of them spoke about last night or about Deirdre. Everything seemed reassuringly normal to Molly.
He cooked eggs and bacon while she quietly finished getting dressed, careful not to wake Michael. After breakfast, she and David would deliberately rouse the child and play with him for a few minutes, then David would leave for work and Molly would dress and feed Michael and walk him to the Small Business Preschool, six blocks away.
“You working on something today?” David asked when they were seated opposite each other at the kitchen table.
“Book on architecture from Link Publishing,” she said, salting her scrambled eggs. “I’ve got the rest of the week to finish it.”
He took a sip of coffee and smiled. “What do you know about architecture?”
“What’s an architect know about dangling participles?”
“Good point. You gonna finish on time?”
“Easily. It’s going to be mostly photographs of European cathedrals. The text is all about flying buttresses, opposing stresses, Gothic spires, that sort of thing.”
“Saaay, you
“We can.”
She stood up from the table and David followed her into Michael’s bedroom. It was a small room, painted pale blue with decals of fish and sea horses on the walls. Toys were piled in a blue rubber laundry basket in a corner. More toys were lined on shelves alongside a narrow dresser. On the top shelf was a penny-stuffed piggy bank Michael’s grandfather-Molly’s father-had sent him from Detroit last winter when Michael had had the flu. A delicate butterfly mobile dangled from the center of the ceiling, swaying gently in the stirring of air caused by the opening door.
Muffin, the brown and orange cat that was a gift from the previous tenant, uncoiled from where he’d been curled near the foot of the bed, stretched, then left by way of the window that was propped open six inches by a stack of weathered paperback books to allow him access to the fire escape.
Molly and David watched their son sleep for a few seconds. He was fair and blond, as David appeared in his childhood photographs. His round face was set in the blank-slate serenity seen only on children in slumber. He was lying on his side, his knees drawn up, his tiny ribs starkly prominent with each deep and even breath. Mortality was so apparent in the very young. He was perspiring slightly and his down-like hair was plastered to his forehead.
Each morning was like the beginning of a new and fascinating chapter for Molly when she stood alongside her sleeping son. She knew she would nudge him awake, kiss him, and another day would unfold in their journey to his adulthood while they learned from each other. He was her reminder that life was an exploration.
She touched his soft, bare shoulder and he stirred and opened his eyes. Smiled.
“Big Mike,” David said, and bent low and kissed him gently on the forehead.
Michael stretched out his arms and David lifted him effortlessly, holding him well away until he was sure he hadn’t wet the bed. Then he hugged him, kissed him again, and while Michael was still chortling he handed him carefully to Molly and turned to leave for work.
This must be a ritual as old as the family, she thought. Fathers readying to leave for the hunt on primal, misty mornings lost forever in the past. She smiled. Not a politically correct thought? She wasn’t sure. But it was a lovely thought, even if she was soon to begin work herself.
David turned back as if on a whim and kissed her forehead, then ruffled Michael’s hair. Michael reached up and rufffled his father’s hair right back.
“Have a good day, you two,” David said, and left the bedroom.
She heard the floor creak as he walked into the bathroom, probably to recomb his hair, as she sorted through the dresser drawers for something Michael hadn’t outgrown.
David laid his folded suit coat on the toilet lid and ran water in the washbasin. He wet his hands and slicked back his hair, then raked a comb through it and checked his image in the mirror. He’d splashed a little water on his shirt but the spots would dry soon.
As he scooped up his coat to put it on, something fluttered from one of its pockets and landed on the hexagonal white tiles alongside the vanity.
A small piece of paper, folded once so sharply that it would be permanently creased. He picked it up and
