“Thank you.”
“You would have done well on your own.”
“I appreciate you saying that, but we both know it’s bullshit.”
Rowan loosens our grip, and I’m forced to do the same.
“You were already doing great before I got here.”
Great? I don’t think so. I can manage, sure. The real question is whether I’ll be able to do it again when he’s gone.
* * *
WE WERE EATING, sitting on the couch. Pizza boxes open on the coffee table, our drinks on the floor, Emily’s laughter filling the living room and my heart. We decided to play Pictionary, a game at which I am particularly bad and at which Rowan seems to excel.
Is there anything that man can’t do?
At least my desperate attempts to guess the words make Emily laugh. And that’s all that matters.
“Who wants ice cream?” Mason asks as he stands up. “And a break from all this?”
Emily still laughs and stands up immediately. “I want ice cream. And cookies too.”
“You’re not going to get sick like last time?” Logan asks, obviously worried that Emily will get sick in the night as she did the last time we had ice cream and cookies after dinner.
“I won’t have much of it. I promise.”
“Ice cream for everyone?” Mason asks, turning to Rowan. He knows a ‘no thanks, I’m full’ will never come from me.
“I’m fine,” Rowan says. “Thank you.”
My niblings go into the kitchen together, taking the leftovers with them. Rowan and I remain alone in the living room, their chatter coming from the kitchen, the familiar atmosphere of the evening enveloping us.
“I thought she would never stop crying and be sad all evening.”
Rowan shrugs. “Pizza works wonders.”
“You make some. For me,” I tell him, but quickly correct myself. “I mean, for her, for us… I mean, you know what I mean.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“I don’t think being a lawyer means spending evenings on your client’s floor eating pizza and playing Pictionary.”
“I haven’t played anything like that since…” He thinks about it for a while, but then decides not to continue.
He doesn’t share anything about himself, and I’d really like to get to know him. To understand his past, to determine if the thought that he shows so much comes from a past wound that still hurts.
“I don’t want you to feel trapped, since you’re living here for the time being. We don’t want to interfere with your life, your habits.”
I say this even though I wish the opposite. I wish I could disrupt his life, fill it with colour, music, glitter and chaos.
He gives me a half-hearted smile. “I think it’s a bit late for that.”
I open my mouth to reply, but the children come back with ice cream.
“Thank you, darling,” I say to Emily as she hands me my bowl. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” I ask Rowan, showing him my ice cream. “Chocolate and strawberry, with cookies.”
“I’m sure, thank you.”
