Chapter 11: The Tub

I woke at eight to the smell of coffee I hadn't made, and a man's side of the bed cooling beside me.

For one bad second I thought I had dreamed it.

Then I heard a cabinet close in my kitchen, and the bottom stair outside creaked.

I pulled on his gray work shirt, which lay on the floor, and went to the doorway.

Gabe stood at my stove in his undershirt and jeans, flipping eggs, with his silver hair standing up on one side.

He looked up.

He looked entirely, helplessly happy.

"You stayed," I said.

"I'm making eggs."

"That isn't what I asked."

"I know." He set the spatula down. "I stayed because I wanted to. I'm saying it out loud so you don't have to wonder."

I crossed the kitchen and put my forehead against his chest.

His arms came around me at once.

We stood like that while the eggs burned a little.

"I cut some things from the list," I said into his shirt.

"You said."

"Do you want to know what they were?"

"Yes."

"Don't leave without saying goodbye."

"I won't."

"Don't be nice to me because you feel sorry."

"I don't feel sorry."

"Don't look at me like I'm the thing you lost."

His hand stopped in my hair.

"I'm not looking at you like that," he said slowly. "I'm looking at you like I found the lost thing and it turned out to be a person, with opinions."

I laughed against him.

"Eat your eggs," I said.

"They're burned."

"I like them burned."

"You do not."

"I like them when you burn them."

We ate at the little table by the window, with my bare feet on his knee.

The lake outside was flat and silver, with snow on the pier rails.

Afterward I ran a bath.

My mother's clawfoot tub takes forever to fill and holds the heat.

I poured in the last of the lavender salts and stood in the doorway in his shirt.

"Come here," I said.

He leaned in the bathroom door, watching.

"I'm saying what I want," I told him. "I want you in the water with me."

"That's a good want."

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