Chapter 17: Rule Five

Three weeks later, the doctor looked at my chart and said I was cleared for everything.

I said, "Everything," and she said, "Everything," and wrote it down.

That Thursday morning my daughter slept from nine at night until five-forty.

I stood over her crib at six with my heart going hard, and I did not wake her.

I texted Alastair from the nursery: Rule five expired at 5:40. Come at nine. Hazel has the baby.

He wrote back: Is this a joke?

I wrote: Bring nothing. Especially not groceries.

At nine he stood on my porch in the gray sweater, with his hands empty and his jaw set.

I opened the door before he knocked.

"No pan," he said.

"No pan."

I took his sweater in both fists and pulled him over the threshold, and the door was not even shut when he kissed me.

He kissed me slowly at first, with his hand barely at my jaw.

I bit his lip.

He made a sound low in his throat, and then his hand was in my hair and my back was against the wall, and he was not slow at all.

"Six weeks," I said into his mouth.

"Seven."

"You counted."

"Every day."

I pushed the sweater up and over his head and dropped it on the hall floor.

He was broad and warm and solid, and his chest rose hard under my palms.

I took his hand and walked him up the stairs.

In my bedroom the curtains were half drawn, and the bed was made, because I had made it at six that morning, shaking.

He stopped at the foot of it.

"Emmeline."

"Don't."

"I only want to say that if it hurts, or it's too soon..."

I stepped out of my dress and let it fall.

I stood in front of him in my plain cotton underwear and a nursing bra, with a soft stomach and stretch marks silver across my hips.

"Look at me," I said. "I've been sore for six weeks and tired for seven. I don't want you careful. I want your cock."