Chapter 9: The Gift Basket

The power came back at nine the next morning, and the whole house hummed and clicked awake around us.

Keith's arm was still over me.

I felt him wake all at once, in one long breath.

He didn't pull away.

"Good morning," I said to the fireplace.

"Morning."

"Do you want to explain the cushions?"

"No."

"Do you want to say the thing you said in your sleep?"

I felt him go rigid, and I turned over to see his face.

He was blushing, red to the ears, a grown man with a water department badge on his jacket.

"I didn't say anything in my sleep."

"You said 'Darcy, move your elbow.'"

His whole body let go, and he laughed into the pillow, and I laughed with him until my eyes stung.

It was the first time we had laughed together since the photographs.

When Connie's car pulled up at ten, the twins burst through the door in their coats and found the blanket fort in the living room.

"We have a cave!" Milo shouted.

"A dinosaur cave," said Keith, getting down on his knees. "Do you know what lives in a dinosaur cave?"

"Daddy," said June, climbing into his lap. "You."

He went quiet for a second.

Then he put his face in her curls.

I looked away so he could have the moment.

At lunch he walked me out to the porch with two cups of coffee, and he handed me mine, and our fingers touched and neither of us pretended otherwise.

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