Josh sits down, picks up his phone, thinks twice, and sets it on the table, sipping coffee as his dark eyes rise over the cup to lock with mine. We stare at each other a few hot beats, neither of us looking away as Will digs around for blueberries at the bottom of his bowl, asking, “Do you have a cold?”
“Um…today I just have a headache.”
Josh mutters, “I bet.”
Blowing on my coffee I confess, “My nose is stuffy.”
He snorts through his nose. “That doesn’t surprise me either.”
Will looks at him. “You think she has a cold, Dad?”
“I don’t know what she has. I’m not a doctor.”
“But you just said you weren’t surprised. And you’re acting…smug.”
Josh chuckles, “Smug, huh?”
Pushing his cereal around, Will frowns, “Why would you wanna be smug if someone’s not feeling well?”
Taking my shot, I tease, “Yeah Josh, why would you want to rub my sickness in my face like that?”
Josh leans back and gives me a gorgeous view of his sculpted chest — waking me up better than coffee ever could. “I can tell she’s going to be alright, that’s why.”
Will accepts this and shovels more granola and berries than his spoon can take. He leans forward to capture all of it, but misses a lot that splatters onto the table and drips down his chin. Josh doesn’t move to help, and Will begins to wipe his mouth on his arm.
I jump up and, even though I’m usually very careful about wasting paper towels, tear four sheets off, handing two to him, “Here you go,” and cleaning the spill with the other two. It takes merely a few seconds, is really no big deal, and I hold out my hand with a smile, “You got it all. Much better.” Will plants the used sheets onto my open palm and I turn to throw them all away. But there’s no trash bin under the sink — just cleaning products, folded plastic bags, an old brush, and one fire extinguisher. “Where do you keep your garbage can?”
From behind me Will answers, “In the trash compactor.”
I glance back for more direction that that. “You don’t see many of those anymore!”
My eyes lock with Josh by accident, and I blink in alarm, surprised to discover the forbidding cloud has returned. He’s furious, and his eyes convey a message that needs no words to get their point across.
Don’t take care of my son.
You’re not his mom.
You’re not my wife.
Why are you here?
Go!
Will glances to his father, and notices his mood has altered dramatically. To help me, he extends a skinny arm, index finger weak and voice uncertain, “It looks like all the other cupboards, Tempest, that’s why you can’t tell. It’s the last one by the stove.”
I clear my throat, “Ah, I see. Thank you,” and trash the evidence of boundaries crossed. “This was really nice, but I have to get home.” Leaving my cup on the table doesn’t feel good. We were taught that when you are a guest in someone’s house you clean up after yourself, but I think I’ve done enough cleaning for today. “I need to grab my bag from your room.”
My clicking footsteps ricochet throughout an otherwise silent apartment that belonged to another woman, and still does. Her passing at so young an age is a tragedy I’ll never be able to fully understand the magnitude of. I’ve never loved anyone enough to marry them, but I have dreamed of it. In my heart I can imagine how it would feel if that dream was snatched from me decades before I expected it to be.
Some of us want to live forever.
Not me.
I’d just like to live as long as my husband does, whenever I find him. It would be ideal if both of us left the world at the same time so we wouldn’t have to miss each other as I’m sure Josh misses her.
I have to get out of this apartment.
Where did I leave my bag?
Oh no.
It’s in the bathroom.
Now I look foolish on top of everything.
Touching the wall for support I take a few deep breaths, and walk out to face them.
But Will appears at the end of the hall, holding up my bag, and I cover my surprised gasp with shaking fingers freezing right next to their collage of memories. “Guess I left that in the bathroom.”
His blue eyes flick to the frame. “That’s my mom.”
Pigeon-toed from helplessness, I look at her since he wants me to. The photographs are not all professionally done, but they’re beautiful. One of them camping as a family when Will couldn’t have been more than four. Another at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden when he was around six or seven. The two wedding photos are so perfect they wreck me. But the one with Will as an infant — held in his mother’s arms as she smiles at him with love — that one holds my attention the longest. “She’s beautiful. You can tell that she loved you more than words can say.” Meeting his gaze I confess, “I’m so sorry she’s gone, Will. I wish she was still here for you.”
He shifts his weight, gaze drifting from the collage to me. “Do you have a mom still?”
Tears leaps into my heart and stay there. “I do, yes.”
“Is she nice?”
“She’s um…” Blinking to the ground, I exhale, unsure how best to explain the powerhouse that is Rose Tuck. “My Mom is very strong. I don’t know if I’d call her nice. She was more a role model than a nurturer.”
“Will she take care of you now that you’re sick?”
“I’m all grown up now so she probably won’t even know.”
“My mom used to take care of me when I was sick.”
My chest hurts for him, and I offer a smile, but then Josh appears behind his son. “Didn’t you say you have to be
