Chapter 4: Lemons

I woke up Wednesday with his beard still on my skin and the whole house smelling like coffee.

He had slept in the spare room.

I had slept in the attic.

We'd agreed on that on the basement stairs at eleven the night before, with my blouse buttoned wrong and his hand still on my hip.

Agreed was a strong word.

I'd said, "You'll sleep downstairs," and he'd said, "I know," and neither of us had looked pleased.

At twenty to seven I stood in the only bathroom on the main floor, which is the size of a phone booth.

I turned the shower as hot as it goes.

Mom's old claw-foot tub took up most of the room.

The shower was a ring of pipe over it and a plastic curtain printed with lemons.

The lock had been broken since the Clinton administration.

I stood under the water with my face tipped up and my eyes shut.

I thought about concrete, and a canvas cover, and a man saying my name.

The curtain rattled.

I opened my eyes.

Ed stood on the bath mat in nothing but a towel, with a toothbrush in his mouth and his eyes at the ceiling.

"Sorry," he said around the toothbrush. "I knocked."

"I didn't hear it."

"I knocked loud."

"I had water in my ears."

"I'll go."

"You'll brush your teeth," I said. "In here. With me. Like a normal couple."

He took the toothbrush out.

"Are we a couple?"

"We're two people who share a hot water heater."

His eyes came down from the ceiling.

They went down my wet shoulders, across my breasts, and the toothbrush made a small clatter in the sink.

"Lori," he said. "I don't have good judgment around you."

"I've noticed."

"I told myself this morning that was it."

"And?"

He dropped the towel.

He stepped over the lip of the tub and the curtain closed behind him, and the lemons wrapped around us both.

It was a very small shower for a very big man.

His chest filled up all the space in front of me, hair already slick with water.

I laughed, breathless, because there was nowhere to put my elbows.

"Turn around," he said.

I turned.

I put both hands flat against the tile, cold green tile my mother had picked in 1989.

The hot spray ran down my spine into the crease of my ass.

He stood behind me and didn't touch me.