My Dad's Best Friend Moved Into My Spare Room After His Divorce, and the Promise He Made My Father Lasted Four Days novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Sunday

There was a foil-wrapped brisket on my front porch on Sunday morning, with a sticky note on it in my father's capitals.

DON'T ANSWER THE DOOR NAKED. -DAD

I read it through the peephole.

Ed read it over my shoulder, with the quilt around his waist and his chin on top of my head.

"Subtle," he said.

"He's been waiting thirty years for a chance to write that."

"He's been waiting thirty years to write a lot of things."

I took the brisket in with one arm, pulled the door shut with my foot and carried it past Walter to the kitchen.

Walter had come down the attic stairs on his own at six, one terrified step at a time.

His tail was down, and he wore a look of profound personal growth.

Now he stood in the hall, ears up, daring us to go back up without him.

"Fine," I said. "You can come."

"He's not allowed in the bed."

"He's allowed on the rug."

I put the brisket in the refrigerator, between the dentist reminder and a photo of my mother, and turned around.

Ed was standing in the kitchen doorway with his hands at his sides.

He was looking at me.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You look like you want to say something."

"I've got no job today," he said. "No dog walk. No grill. Nobody to hide from."

"That's what Sunday looks like."

"I never had one before."

I crossed the kitchen.

I put my arms around his waist and my cheek against his bare chest.

I felt his heart under my ear, slow and steady, a good clock.

"Come back to bed," I said.

We took the attic stairs together, with the dog's nails behind us.

The room was bright.

The bedsheet lay folded on the chair.

The mirror held the morning, and on the unmade bed his belt lay where I'd left it, coiled.

I laughed.

He picked it up and hung it on a bedpost, very gravely, and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"Come here."

I stepped between his knees.

He tipped his head back and looked at me in the full sun.

His hands went to the hem of the flannel shirt I'd put on, his own.

He lifted it over my head, slowly.

He kissed my stomach.

He kissed the red mark on my hip, now faded to purple at the edges.

He put his lips to it so softly that I shivered.

"Mine," he said.

"Say it differently."

"Why?"

"You've said it twenty times. I want a new one."

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