Malcolm had put his tie over the back of her kitchen chair. In the morning it looked less like formal clothing than evidence that someone had come in and become comfortable.
Annelise saw it on her way to fill the kettle and smiled. Then she stepped on a hairpin.
“Ow.”
“What?” he called from the bedroom.
“My elegance has scattered.”
She picked up the pin and found two more beside it. There were probably enough around the flat to hold a minor structure together. Last night she had lost patience with removing them carefully, and Malcolm had watched her pull one after another from her hair with an expression that had made carefulness seem even less necessary.
Now she put the pins in a dish and checked the floor with her bare foot before taking another step.
He appeared in the doorway wearing his pants and the soft, creased undershirt he had slept in. His hair was barely different. She found that unreasonable when hers appeared to have made several decisions in the night.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Please.”
“There are eggs. And bread. The bread may need persuasion.”
“Toast is a persuasive argument.”
He came behind her while she stood at the counter, put both hands at her hips and kissed the side of her neck. Her eyes closed. She had been about to open a cupboard. Now she couldn’t remember which one.
“I need to feed you,” she said.
“Eventually.”
She turned in his arms. The morning light showed the short silver hairs beginning at the edge of his beard, details she couldn’t have known when they were young. She touched one with her fingertip, and he caught her hand to kiss the inside of her wrist.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing I want to make you self-conscious about.”
“Too late.”
“I like your face.”
“That was available last night.”
“I was busy with the rest of you.”
He laughed, low and surprised, and the kettle clicked off behind her.
Breakfast took longer than it should have because they kept standing in each other’s way. Her kitchen was arranged for one person who knew exactly which door could open while another was open. Malcolm tried to be helpful, reached for a plate, and blocked the drawer she needed.
“Stay there,” she said.
He stopped with a plate in each hand.
“That sounds ominous.”
“I need the spatula.”
“I can move.”
“If you move now I’ll step on you.”
They held still for a second, both looking down at the tiny patch of floor between their feet. Then she began to laugh, and he put the plates down before they could suffer for it.
“Your system has no guest setting,” he said.
“My system expected you to stay in bed.”
“You should have issued instructions.”
“I was hoping for intuition.”
“Overrated.”
He took the toast to the table and left her enough room to finish the eggs. She liked him helping. She liked having the stove to herself. Both could be true without a discussion long enough to burn breakfast.
They ate with the window cracked open and the cool air cutting through the warmth from the stove. Malcolm used more pepper than she would have thought pleasant. She took the corner piece of toast before he could, then gave him half when she saw him looking at it.
“I wasn’t asking.”
“You were looking.”
“You’re policing looking now?”
“Only at my toast.”
Her phone buzzed beside the fruit bowl. A message from Cecily showed a pair of bags by a door and the words Leaving. Nobody ask me to choose a color or a font for three days.
Annelise held it out to Malcolm.
“Reasonable,” he said.
She sent back Have a lovely time. All fonts suspended.
Then she put the phone face down. There would be pictures, probably, and some account of the little hotel Cecily had chosen for their three nights away. She could hear about it when her sister returned.
“What are you doing today?” Malcolm asked.
She looked around the flat. Her dress was over the bedroom door. There were two glasses by the sofa and a bag she had emptied in search of a tissue. Usually the morning after a family event would have offered enough small obligations to justify not deciding what she wanted.
“Laundry. Food shopping. Something wildly extravagant with these hairpins.”
“I’ve got a pile of washing that’s become a geographical feature.”
“You’d get the quiz question wrong.”
“Unnecessary.”
She smiled into her coffee.
“I should go back this afternoon,” he said. “I’ve promised myself I’ll sort a few things before Monday.”
“That works. I need groceries before everything I’m offering guests becomes toast.”
“I haven’t complained.”
“I know. Your standards are concerning.”
He stretched one leg beneath the table, catching her foot with his. “I have very high standards in some areas.”
“Such as?”
“Company.”
She felt herself smile before she could reply. The room seemed unusually bright, although the sun had moved behind a cloud.
They cleared the table. He washed while she dried, which suited the kitchen better than two people cooking. She watched his hands beneath the water and remembered them against her last night. He noticed her watching.
“You’re drying the same plate twice.”
“It’s very wet.”
“Of course.”
She bumped his hip with hers and took the next one.
When the dishes were done, they moved to the sofa with more coffee. It was not quite ten. An entire Sunday remained, loose at the edges.
“Wednesday?” she asked.
“Yes. Mine or yours?”
“Yours. I like being able to open a drawer without an evacuation.”
“Seven?”
“Seven.”
He reached for his phone to put it in the calendar. She liked watching him do it, and looked away before she could turn the pleasure into an inspection.
“And November third,” she said. “The concert starts at seven. I’ll have to be there earlier.”
“That’s Saturday.” He checked. “I’m working that day, but we finish at four. Plenty of time.”
“It’s only a small hall. You won’t need binoculars.”
“Am I allowed to wave?”
“At the end. During the singing I might wave back and miss something.”
“Very disciplined.”
She explained where it was and that the organizer would send ticket details. He asked whether he should meet her there rather than collect her, since she would be early. She said yes, relieved not to have to hurry through warmups looking for him at the door.
He set the phone down and leaned his head against the sofa.
“Are you going to sing anything I know?”
“Possibly. I wouldn’t want to damage your confidence by testing you.”
“You seem very concerned about my confidence.”
“It’s delicate. Geography. Toast. Music.”
“I see you’ve prepared a list.”
She laughed and rested her legs across his. For a while they sat without talking. A car passed below the window. Somebody in the building shut a door with more force than necessary. Malcolm’s fingers moved idly over the side of her calf.
She could have stayed there until it was time for him to go. It would have been a lovely, lazy morning. But the folder on the table caught her eye. Tuesday’s pencil mark waited above the rest she had kept missing. She had promised herself fifteen minutes of practice, because rehearsal was more enjoyable when she didn’t spend it trying to remember what had happened the week before.
“I need to do something slightly embarrassing,” she said.
Malcolm opened his eyes. “Should I be concerned?”
“I want to practice. The choir music.”
“All right.”
She moved her legs off him. “You don’t have to stay.”
He sat up a little. “Do you want me to go?”
“No.”
“Do you want me in another room?”
She considered it honestly. She could send him to the kitchen to make more coffee nobody needed. She could wait until he left. She could keep the pleasant idea that the voice he would eventually hear in a hall was the only voice she had.
“I think I’d like you to stay where you are.”
“Then I will.”
He reached for the magazine on the low table, a week-old thing she had picked up while waiting for a grocery order. He turned to an article and settled back. His matter-of-factness ought to have helped. Instead it left her alone with the actual task.
She took the folder to the kitchen table, opened it, and made a small, cautious noise.
That wasn’t singing. That was checking whether she had been accidentally switched off.
She tried the first line. It came out thin and too high. Her face warmed. Behind her, Malcolm turned a page.
“I’m starting in the wrong place,” she said.
He didn’t answer. After a second she realized she hadn’t really been talking to him.
She used the rehearsal recording the choir had provided, listening through the short introduction with her thumb ready to stop it. Then she sang the alto line beneath it, quietly at first, and heard where she had been trying to borrow the melody from another part.
There. That was the note.
It wasn’t a beautiful sound in the kitchen. It was a sound with work in it. She ran out of breath before the end of the phrase, frowned, and marked where she could breathe without breaking the word. Then she tried again.
Malcolm’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, typed a reply, and set it down. The world had continued. She was singing in it.
On the third attempt she got through the passage and felt the small, precise satisfaction of something becoming easier. She didn’t turn around to see whether he had noticed. She went back to the beginning and sang it once more, loud enough now that the voice sounded like hers.
When she stopped, he looked up.
“Tea?” he asked.
She laughed unexpectedly. “Yes, please.”
He got up and passed behind her, touching her shoulder as he went. She caught his hand for a moment, pressed it against her cheek, and let it go.
While he filled the kettle, she turned the page. There was another entry she needed to find. She took a breath and began, hearing the water run behind her and her own imperfect voice carry through the room.