Chapter 17: Daylight

He drove us home without saying a word, and I held his hand on the gearshift the whole way.

He had slept on the couch for three nights.

He had made me coffee with cream and left it by the bed and gone out again before I could thank him.

He had not held me once since the kitchen, not in his arms.

In the gatehouse he shut the door and stood with his back against it, still in his jacket.

Joy was at school until three, and the stove was low.

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you've been not saying for three days."

"I thought I'd cost you the right to ask," he said. "I lied by leaving out a box. I thought you'd want space."

"I want space from the lie," I said. "I don't want it from you."

"Laurel."

"I'm still angry. I'll be angry on and off for a while, and you'll have to live with it."

I took off my coat and let it drop.

"I forgive you anyway," I said. "Both of those are true."

He didn't move.

"You took my hand on the sidewalk in front of a camera," I said. "You didn't ask if you could. You just did it."

"I wanted them to see."

"Then do the rest of it."

He pushed off the door.

"Upstairs," I said. "In daylight. I want to watch you."

He followed me up the narrow stairs, close enough that I could feel him behind me.

The bedroom was small, with a slanted ceiling and one window over the lake, and the winter sun came straight across the bed.

I turned around and pulled his jacket off his shoulders.

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