by Rea Frey
“What are you reading?”
“My mom’s journal.”
“What?” She pushes into his room, pauses, and waits for permission. “May I see?”
He points to a gray journal on the bed, its pages fluttering under the high whine of the ceiling fan. She flips off the fan and runs her fingers over the cover. It’s the same journal she saw in Lee’s studio. The one she brought to Black Mountain. “Hey, bud. You know that journals are for private thoughts, right?”
Mason hovers by the door. “Yes, I am quite aware of that fact.”
“And those thoughts are for grown-ups, not kids.”
“I have an IQ of one-fifty-six. That’s a landslide compared to most grown-ups.”
Grace laughs. “That’s true, but this is still meant to be private.”
He sits beside her and points to a random page. “Have you read this? My mom had a lot of secrets.”
She refrains from just taking the journal. She would never dream of doing something so sudden with Mason, something she wouldn’t even think twice about if it were Luca. She is growing accustomed to the two sets of rules, but sometimes it’s hard not to fall back on her parenting impulses. “Is this why you were upset last night? Were you looking for this?”
He shrugs. “I found it, didn’t I?” He plucks the wooden airplane from his nightstand and holds it. “I just miss her.”
“Of course you do,” Grace says. She eyes the journal again. “Sorry for coming into your room unannounced. Would you like some breakfast?”
“Yes, please.”
“May I have the journal?”
He rolls his eyes. “Grown-ups really are no fun.”
“Thank you.” She tucks it under her arm and then places it on her desk. She heads into the kitchen and sees Noah bent over her coffeemaker. “That’s a lovely sight.” Grace smiles and kisses him on the lips.
“Well, good morning to you too. Didn’t want to wake you.” Circles deepen the hollows beneath his eyes.
“No sleep?”
“Couldn’t for some reason.”
“Coffee should help.” She slips on her sweater, washes her hands, and pulls down two mugs.
“I can’t find the decaf though. Where do you keep it?”
“Oh, you know what? I’m out. But the doctor said I could still have one cup of regular coffee a day.”
“Even with your age and everything?” Noah raises his eyebrows. “She said that’s okay?”
She doesn’t take offense at his question and instead laughs. “Yes, even in my old age. One cup of coffee is fine.”
His face relaxes. “Thank God. Because I need it today. One strong cup coming up.”
Once breakfast is ready, Luca plays with two Transformers on the table, mouthing silent explosions as the plastic toys butt into each other, while Mason reads a science book.
Grace sips her coffee, not yet ready to eat. Noah wolfs his eggs. “Everything okay? You seem nervous or something.”
“No.” He wipes away egg with his napkin. “Just anxious to get everything wrapped up today.”
“We’ll get it done. Carol offered to watch the boys while we work, since she’s right down the street. They can play outside.”
Mason’s head pops up. “Can I come with you? I don’t want to go to Carol’s.”
“I thought you liked Carol’s,” Grace says.
“Zoe is too messy. Can we just stay while you work? We won’t get in the way, right, Luca?”
Luca nods. “Right.”
Grace thinks of Mason’s room, robbed of all personal items. “You know your room is empty.”
“I just want to say good-bye.”
“Fair enough.”
Mason nods and returns to reading. She waits for the caffeine to assuage her pounding head. After breakfast, they pile into Noah’s car. She makes sure the boys fasten their seat belts. Her mind drifts as Noah engages Mason and Luca in a game of trivia.
Mason is the first to bolt inside after pulling into the gravel drive. His arms slice in straight, stiff lines by his hips. He dashes into his old room, shuts the door, and twists the lock. Luca charges into the backyard and climbs onto the fraying—but recently reinforced—tire swing. She watches her unruly boy thrust his middle through the rubber and gain higher and higher momentum.
Grace hesitates outside Mason’s bedroom door and then finds Noah in the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets. She leans against the counter and crosses her arms. “Hey, can we get on the same page about something?”
“That we should come up with a way to inject caffeine into our veins to get anything done?” He spins in the room. “Have you seen Lee’s coffeemaker? I made sure not to pack it yet.”
Grace retrieves it from the upper cabinet by the refrigerator and plugs it in. “Problem solved.”
“My hero.” Noah kisses her, and for a moment, she gets lost in the feel of his tongue in her mouth and his strong hand gripping the back of her neck. He pulls away first. “What do you want to get on the same page about?”
“So this morning, I asked Mason not to lock his bedroom door. He likes to lock it, which I get, but we have a no-locked-doors policy in our house.”
Noah nods and fills the carafe from the tap. “Sure, I get it. I’ll talk to him.”
“Thank you.” Grace has a thing about locked doors. Her sister used to lock herself in her room. Bad things happened behind locked doors. They made her paranoid.
“Now for the important question.” Noah reaches across the counter and palms a bag of Vienna roast. “Are you allowed to have another cup?”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.” Did Grace turn off her own coffeepot? Noah shakes the grounds into the filter and presses start. The kitchen fills with the scent of roasted beans. She’s so forgetful lately: misplacing socks in the linen closet, toothpaste in the freezer, mail dropped and forgotten under the driver’s seat of her car. He hands her Lee’s hair school mug.
She traces her fingers over the porcelain of Lee’s favorite mug. How many times has she stood in this very spot, exhausted from a bad parenting night while drowning her sorrows in countless cups of coffee? Grace suppresses the memory as she pours herself a cup, clears her throat, and turns toward the studio. “Would you mind keeping an eye on Luca? I’m going to pick up where we left off.”
“Sure. I’ve just got a few more things in here and then I’ll join you.”
She steps into the garage, eyeing the rug they sat on last night. She moves to it first, deposits her coffee on the edge of Lee’s desk, and winds the shaggy white rug into a tight coil. She drags it to the corner of the garage, hoists it up with some effort, and smacks away the dirt, hair, and lint that blow back onto her shoulders. Maybe the rug had been a terrible idea.
She sweeps up the debris from the cement, pulling the clogged bristles of the broom across split ends, pennies, rocks, and dead ladybugs, and then tugs the neck of her shirt over her nose as her eyes burn from the stench of lingering chemicals—bleach, ammonia, glosses, hair spray. She dumps the sagging dustpan into the open trash bag and looks around again. So much has been packed, moved, and taken apart. Perhaps she is prolonging all of this because she really isn’t ready to move on. Despite going back to Black Mountain. Despite the quick ceremony in the park. Despite watching Lee’s pebbled ashes drift away, carried high by the wind.
A cluster of products tumbles from Lee’s desk, and she stoops to throw them into a half-filled box. She’ll donate them to a local salon so they won’t go to waste. She takes another sip of her coffee, still scalding. That’s why Lee loved this mug. Her coffee, no matter long how long it sat, stayed hot.
The pocket door rolls open. “Refill?” he offers.
“Now we’re going from one cup to three?”
“Hey, it won’t kill you, right? You said so yourself.”
She nods and he crosses the bare cement to top her off, looks into her eyes, and kisses her. “I want to talk to you about something tonight, okay?”
Her skin barbs. �
�Okay.”
“Nothing bad, I promise.”
Grace immediately begins to decipher their recent conversations and tries to pinpoint what he could possibly have to say.
He smooths the wrinkle from between her brows. “That’s your worry crease, you know. It’s your tell.”
She fingers it self-consciously. I have a tell?
“Don’t worry. It’s adorable.” He flips the coffeepot lid and retreats back to the kitchen. “Open or closed?”
“Open, please.”
She shuffles through all of the things Noah could have to tell her. She knows everything about him … doesn’t she? What could he possibly want to discuss?
She takes another sip of coffee and wonders if it has anything to do with the baby. They haven’t talked about living arrangements yet, but of course the natural progression will be to move in together. Maybe even get married.
There’s a small part of her that would take satisfaction in rubbing her newfound happiness in Chad’s face, after everything he’s put her through.
But is she ready for all of that?
She continues packing and cleaning and stops every few minutes to sneak a peek at Luca and make sure Mason is fine. Noah works diligently in the other room, and she admires his movements, the width of his back, the muscles flexing beneath his T-shirt.
Desire hums through her body but she wills it away. She focuses on the task at hand and waits for what he will inevitably reveal tonight.
47
grace
It has been a long day of packing, and all Grace wants is a beer. Her feet hurt. The boxes are gone. The floors vacuumed. The windows washed. The artwork removed. Lee removed.
On the way home they grab takeout, play a quick game of Scrabble at Grace’s, and then Luca and Mason disappear to work on a project.
Noah sweeps the small wooden tiles back into the box. She collapses on her couch, legs extended, and hears the swift pop of the metal top on Noah’s favorite local IPA, Bearded Iris.
“I would literally give my right arm for that beer.”
“Then how would you carry our baby?”
“I’ve got this one.” She gestures with her left hand.
He kisses her and places her legs over his. “Should we check on them?”
She relaxes against the cushions. “Not unless they give us a reason to.”
He takes a deep pull and emits a satisfied sigh. “Good point.”
“What a day.”
“But we got it done.” He massages her calves with his free hand.
“You mean you got it done. I feel like I wasn’t much help.”
“Are you insane? You cleaned that house until it sparkled. All while pregnant, I might add.”
She waves a hand. “I don’t feel any different yet. Except more tired.”
“Still. I know it wasn’t easy doing all of that. You should have let me hire a crew.”
“Nonsense. I wanted to do that for her, at least.” She blinks at the ceiling. “You know, it’s funny. When I was pregnant with Luca, I was obsessive about every stage. How big he was, what was happening to my body, if he was the size of a seed, an avocado, or a grapefruit. This time, I haven’t even had a second to really think about it. There’s been so much going on, I…” I want to pretend it all never happened. I want Mason to be happy. I want Luca to be happy. I want all of this to be easy.
“I know. Look.” He scoots closer to her on the couch. “This has all been the opposite of what anyone expected, right?”
“Understatement of the year.”
He places his beer on the coffee table. “But we’re getting through it. We’re going to get through it. You’ll see.”
Her head rests against the cushion, and the fabric scruffs her ear. “Maybe. And next week will be a bit easier with Mason at science camp.”
Noah smiles. “That’s right. I forgot that was so soon. God, he’s going to love it.”
“I’ve never seen him so excited about something.” At Noah’s suggestion, they’d taken Mason to an orientation for sensitive learners, and to her absolute delight, he’s been counting down the days until camp begins.
“It will be good for him.” Noah rubs her legs. “And you.” He pauses.
Grace wonders if he’s going to reveal what he wanted to talk about earlier. She closes her eyes. Though she wants to hear what he has to say—has been thinking about it most of the day—what she wants more is intimacy. His mouth on hers. To get lost in feeling, not thinking.
With all of the aftermath, there’s been no real room for intimacy, and she craves it. Whether it’s hormones, grief, sleeplessness, or just desire, she wants to feel something other than the residue of the to-dos in deconstructing and simultaneously rebuilding a life. She runs the tip of her finger underneath the lip of his T-shirt and grazes his belt.
“What are you doing?”
She caresses his skin. “Taxes.”
He glances toward the hall. “But the boys…”
“The boys are fine.”
As if on cue, Mason’s door opens and Luca bounds into the kitchen. She retracts her hand. “What do you need, bud?”
“Snacks.”
“Want help?”
“No.”
Grace laughs. “Help him, please.” The last time Luca fixed a snack on his own, he’d broken a glass.
“I’m on it,” Noah says.
Grace rises to check on Mason. Legos litter the carpet and form a few shaky skyscrapers. His record player spews jazz—a recent discovery Noah made at the local thrift store. “We’re building,” he says.
“That’s a pretty impressive city you’ve got there. May I sit?”
“Suit yourself.” He stacks more Legos with expert precision, building another few inches in the air.
She assesses his room, which is almost a complete replica of his old one. “How are you liking your room?”
“You did it proud.”
Grace smiles. “I’m glad.”
Luca enters with a silver platter of cheese, crackers, grapes, hummus, and veggies and places it on the bed. He crams two crackers and a cube of cheese into his mouth. “Come on, Mom. We need privacy.”
She rises, hands up in surrender, and backs out of the room. Noah meets her in the hall and kisses her deeply. With the boys safely lost in their world of building and eating, Grace succumbs to Noah’s hands on her face, his lips against her skin, and her body bound to his. He leads her to her bedroom and shuts and locks the door. They hurry out of their clothes. Passion throttles through her. She can think of nothing else but the need for him to be inside her.
His tongue twines with hers with an intensity she thought they’d lost. Though they often have uninhibited sex, it has been sweeter and softer since she found out she was pregnant, but tonight, she just wants to be consumed. She climbs onto her bed on all fours, and he silently moves behind her, urging her legs apart with his knees.
“Is this what you want?”
She nods and blocks out the world. He runs his hands the length of her spine and hips. He braces himself behind her, moving around but not in.
“Please,” she insists.
He continues teasing her until he finally, slowly, eases inside. Her thighs throb with need. Grace moves back to meet him. “Deeper.”
His left hand grips her shoulder, then works around to her mouth. She sucks his fingers as he rocks in and out of her. She tosses her head back and slams into him. Their breath ignites the room. Before she can ask for more, his hand pauses at her throat and then closes. She arches back, inviting it—she loves it rough—and can hear his fast breathing; how close he is already. She needs this to last. He whispers something, but the blood whooshes through her ears as she tries to breathe. His fingers are too tight.
She reaches a hand to loosen his grip. His mouth moves behind her, his body close to explosion, but she can only make out some of what he says between heated breaths. “Do you like that? Do you like it when I squeeze?”
&nb
sp; Dread sweeps the room, her brain, her neck. His fingers tighten until she struggles for breath. Those words … she knows those words. What they mean. She wants to pry her throat free, but she has to know. She has to keep going. She has to hear the truth. “Yes,” she chokes.
He fucks her harder until her body convulses at his will. His body suctions onto hers, and, with her throat in one hand, he cups her ear with his lips, licking and sucking. “Do you like being choked? Do you like thinking about what I could do to you?” He thrusts harder until he comes, still grinding into her hips.
His words drum in her ears. Lee’s story at Arbor House, on the deck, reels into focus. Those words. The choking. The man in the dark.
She gasps as he finally releases his hand and she collapses to her belly. The flesh of her ass bounces as she lies there, her brain spinning. She coughs and struggles for clean air before flipping over and palming the sheet over her naked body. Wherever he’d just been dissolves as he cocks back on his heels, sweaty and swollen, blinking at her.
“What just happened? Are you okay? Was that too tight?”
She fingers her throat. “Yeah, a little.”
“Shit. Sorry. That was just ridiculously hot. We haven’t really gotten adventurous … since the baby.”
“I know. Speaking of.” She slithers to her feet and refrains from sprinting to the bathroom. “I need to pee.” The door is too far. She swipes her clothes from the floor, shakes them out, and uses them as a shield. She focuses on getting her feet to move, the bathroom door now just an arm’s length away.
Before she can get there, the pads of Noah’s strong, wide feet pulse behind her. “Grace? Hey. Look at me. Are you sure you’re okay?” He eyes her belly. His body blocks the door.
“I’m fine. The baby’s fine.” Her hand moves to her stomach. “I literally just have to pee.” She reaches up on tiptoe to kiss him and shuts the door. She twists the lock. She looks in the mirror. Fingerprints bloom around her throat. Noah’s fingers. Had she really heard right?
She replays the conversation with Lee in Black Mountain. Lee would have known. He couldn’t be—
Noah knocks on the door. “Grace?” His voice sounds worried as he raps knuckles against wood.
