Imani opened the door with a dish towel over one shoulder and a wooden spoon in her hand.
“If either of you has brought advice, leave it outside.”
“I brought drinks,” Malcolm said.
“Acceptable.”
Annelise held up a bunch of flowers, suddenly aware that one stem was drooping at a dramatic angle.
“No advice attached.”
“Even better. Come in.”
The hallway was warm and crowded with coats. From farther inside came voices, the sound of a drawer being opened, and somebody laughing over the end of a sentence. Imani wore a bright green dress with orange shapes across it and slippers that made no attempt to belong to the dress.
“Shoes off if they’re muddy, on if they’re not,” she said. “I have abandoned consistency.”
Annelise looked down at her boots. Malcolm had already taken his off. She decided hers were clean enough and kept them on, then stopped thinking about it.
Imani took the flowers and inspected the drooping one.
“This one’s had a day.”
“It was upright in the store.”
“They all are.”
She went toward the kitchen, talking over her shoulder. Annelise followed Malcolm into the living room, where an aunt and two cousins were already settled with drinks. Introductions happened without ceremony. Annelise repeated names to herself, knowing she would forget at least one, and accepted a place on the sofa that required moving a large cushion shaped like an entirely unnecessary square.
Malcolm’s aunt stood to hug him. He bent, kissed her cheek, and submitted to a brief inspection of his face.
“You’re tired.”
“Hello to you too.”
“I can say two things.”
“I’m well. How are you?”
“Also capable of being tired.”
Annelise smiled into her glass. It was a different Malcolm beside this woman: not younger exactly, but less in charge of which details were allowed to matter. He moved the cushion from Annelise’s lap and sat down, still answering a question about whether he had seen a relative recently.
She listened for a while. People were arranging a December visit, correcting one another about who would be there. The conversation moved quickly between names she didn’t know. Nobody stopped to explain the entire family tree to her, which was a relief until it wasn’t. After the third reference to someone moving, she had lost both the person and the place.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Who moved?”
Malcolm’s aunt turned to her at once. “My younger sister. Only across town, though you’d think she’d gone to another continent from the amount of discussion.”
“She moved the contents of a continent,” Malcolm said.
“You carried two boxes.”
“Extremely significant boxes.”
“You asked what was in them before you lifted them.”
“Planning.”
Now Annelise could follow. The move had involved a cabinet that wouldn’t fit through a doorway, a promise from the delivery company which had proved optimistic, and an aunt who had refused to admit she preferred the cabinet to the room it was meant for.
“Did it get in?” Annelise asked.
“Yes,” Malcolm said.
“After he took the door off,” his aunt added. “And then he wanted everyone to stop helping.”
“Because everyone was helping in different directions.”
“We were encouraging.”
Annelise looked at him. “Was that the problem?”
“You have no idea.”
There was affection in his irritation, worn smooth through use. He didn’t have to be charming here. He could complain about being encouraged while someone tried to feed him before dinner, and everyone knew the difference between complaint and refusal.
Imani called from the kitchen for somebody with unoccupied hands. Annelise got up, partly because hers were empty and partly because the sofa cushion was migrating behind her back again.
“Two bowls,” Imani said when she appeared. “That one, and that one. Not the hot one.”
Annelise picked up the indicated bowls and took them to the table. There were mismatched plates, cloth napkins folded without ambition, and enough space for everyone if elbows were negotiated. The flowers had found a vase. The drooping stem had been cut short and was now entirely respectable.
“You rescued it.”
“I shortened its responsibilities.”
Imani put a dish down and blew a loose strand of hair off her forehead. “How was the wedding?”
“Lovely. Busy. My sister was happy.”
“Good. Malcolm sent me a picture of you both.”
Annelise looked up. “The one outside after the ceremony?”
“That’s it. It’s very good of you. He’s making a questionable shape with his arm.”
“That sounds accurate.”
“He said it was intentional.”
“It wasn’t.”
Imani laughed. “I suspected.”
Annelise smiled, remembering the picture on her own phone. She liked that Imani had enjoyed it too. She carried the next dish while Imani asked whether there had been good cake.
Dinner began while one cousin was still finishing a story. Imani sat down with visible satisfaction, looked at the table, and realized she’d forgotten the serving spoon she had been holding when they arrived.
“Nobody move,” she said. “I know where it is.”
Malcolm stood anyway because he was nearest the kitchen. Imani told him which drawer, and he opened the wrong one.
“The other left.”
“You changed the drawers.”
“I moved here two years ago.”
“Recent development.”
He returned with the spoon and sat beside Annelise, his knee bumping hers under the table. He left it there for a moment. She pressed back lightly.
The meal was good and abundant: chicken, roasted vegetables, rice with enough herbs to make Annelise wish she had paid attention in the kitchen. She took a little of everything, then went back for more of the vegetables. Imani saw her reaching and moved the bowl closer without comment.
For a while conversation stayed with the meal, who had made what, whether a recipe had been followed or interpreted. Then Imani’s aunt asked about the man Imani had been seeing.
“He’s well,” Imani said. “Thank you for your restrained interest.”
“I asked one question.”
“It contained future questions.”
“Is he coming next time?”
“There they are.”
Annelise laughed. Imani pointed at her with her fork.
“Don’t encourage her.”
“I’m recognizing the technique.”
“Thank you.”
But Imani was smiling. She told them about a walk they had taken that had turned out to be much longer than the advertised distance, and about the museum he wanted to visit next weekend. She had opinions about the museum’s audio guide, although she hadn’t heard it yet. The conversation turned to whether audio guides improved museums or merely put a voice between a person and the thing they were looking at.
Annelise preferred reading labels. Malcolm liked hearing people explain objects, provided they knew when to stop. Imani wanted both and complained when the information was different.
“Because then I have to do it twice,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” Malcolm said.
“You don’t have to take twelve pictures of a wall.”
“Six.”
“A modest man.”
Annelise nearly said drainpipe, then decided not to make herself the keeper of the correct detail. She was enjoying the argument as it was.
When the plates were cleared, one cousin brought out a handful of old printed photographs found in an envelope. They passed around the table: family parties, a picnic, someone standing beside a car they had evidently loved beyond reason. There were pictures of Malcolm younger, but none from the years Annelise had known him. In one he was a teenager in an oversized shirt, looking intensely offended by the sun.
“That was the lake,” he said.
“No,” Imani said. “That was the picnic near the school.”
“It’s the lake. You can see the water.”
“That’s a car.”
Annelise leaned closer. The bright shape behind him could have been either.
“There was a lake behind the car,” Malcolm said.
Imani held out her hand for the photograph. “Let me see.”
He kept it just beyond her reach, examining the corner as if a date might emerge through concentration.
“I know where I was.”
“You were fourteen. You mostly knew where food was.”
“Fifteen.”
“So precise.”
His aunt took the photograph from him, looked once, and said, “The school picnic.”
Imani sat back with satisfaction.
Malcolm stared at the photograph. “There was definitely water.”
Annelise laughed so hard that a snort escaped before she could stop it. She covered her mouth, which made Malcolm look at her with exaggerated injury and made her laugh harder.
“I see where your loyalties are,” he said.
“I haven’t taken a position on the water.”
“Your tone has.”
She put her hand on his forearm, still laughing. He turned his hand over beneath hers, then gave the photograph back to his aunt.
It passed on. The family disagreed about something else. Annelise asked about a woman in a red coat and heard a story about an aunt who always arrived early and claimed everyone else was late. Nobody asked Annelise to supply a matching story, but she found herself telling them about Maribel’s inability to arrive at a family meal without an extra bag of something useful.
“Useful according to whom?” Imani asked.
“Usually her.”
“Then we understand each other.”
Later, in the kitchen, Annelise dried while Imani washed and Malcolm found places for the dishes. The system required him to ask where almost everything belonged. Imani answered the first four questions patiently and the fifth by moving him away from the cupboard.
“You are in the way of your own success.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Take those plates to the table. I will relocate them mysteriously after you leave.”
Annelise dried the last glass. Her boots had begun to feel too warm. She slipped one heel out and stood unevenly for a moment, comfortable enough to look slightly ridiculous.
“Are you still singing?” Imani asked.
“Yes. We perform next Saturday.”
“Good for you. I can’t come; I’m working late. But send me the next one.”
“I will.”
It was said as simply as an invitation to another meal. Annelise put the glass down, glad of the interest and equally glad not to have to explain what singing meant to her.
By the time they left, the evening had gone cool. Malcolm carried the empty drinks bag to his truck and unlocked her side. She got in and rubbed her hands together while he walked around.
“Did you have a good time?” he asked as he started the engine.
“Yes. I’m still undecided about the water.”
“There was water.”
“I believe that water existed somewhere.”
He gave her a look, then laughed and pulled away from the curb.
They drove for a while with the heat rising between them. Annelise watched the storefront lights pass. Her body had the agreeable heaviness of a good meal and enough conversation. Beside her, Malcolm was quiet without seeming distant.
At a red light he said, “Can I ask your opinion about something?”
“Yes.”
“Work. Briefly.”
“You don’t need a permit.”
He smiled, then looked ahead. “A customer asked about a Saturday in December. We’ve already told them a later date, but they want to move it up. I said I’d look at it, which I probably shouldn’t have said.”
She waited for the rest.
“I’ve got a family visit that weekend. It isn’t something I want to cancel. Tobin has his own plans. I’m trying to decide whether to offer the Friday afternoon or just keep the date we’ve given.”
“Could you actually finish by Friday?”
“Possibly. If everything else goes right.”
“Does everything else usually go right?”
He huffed a laugh. “No.”
“Then I think I’d keep the date. But I don’t know what it costs you to say that.”
“Mostly an uncomfortable phone call. They’re not going elsewhere over a week.”
“That seems useful to know.”
The light changed. He drove through the intersection, considering.
“I wanted you to say Friday was clever.”
“It might be clever. It also sounds tiring.”
“Fair.”
She didn’t ask for the customer’s details or propose drafting the message. He knew how to have a difficult business conversation. She could dislike the idea of him overworking without making herself the person who prevented it.
“I’ll call Monday,” he said. “Keep the date.”
“All right.”
He reached across briefly and squeezed her hand, then returned his hand to the wheel.
Near her flat, they talked about November weather and whether the photo walk would happen in rain. Malcolm said light rain was fine. Annelise said she reserved the right to define light. He asked whether winter choir would still be Tuesday, and she told him the schedule she’d accepted.
“We’ll have to find some other evening for badly informed geography,” he said.
“You can be wrong on any evening.”
“A versatile talent.”
He parked outside her building and turned off the engine. Neither moved immediately.
“I’d ask you up,” she said, “but I think I’m going to fall asleep in about twelve minutes.”
“Eleven,” he said. “You were quiet at the last two lights.”
“Observant.”
“Occasionally.”
He walked her to the door anyway. Under the porch light she could see a small thread caught on the shoulder of his coat. She picked it off, dropped it into her own pocket rather than the ground, and put her hand back on him.
“Thank you for taking me.”
“I’m glad you came.”
She rose onto her toes and kissed him. The kiss lasted long enough to make her reconsider her estimate of twelve minutes, though not the decision to sleep alone in her own bed. He touched her cheek when she stepped back.
“Wednesday,” he said.
“And Saturday.”
“And your very strict definition of rain on Sunday.”
She smiled and opened the door. Before it closed, she looked back. He was still there, hands in his pockets, waiting to see her safely inside. She lifted a hand, then went upstairs, carrying the warmth of the room she’d left into her quiet flat.