On September eleventh, four weeks after Nell was born, Celia put on lipstick to answer the door and took it off before the knock came.
It seemed ridiculous to put on lipstick at three in the afternoon. It seemed worse that she wanted to.
Adrian was bringing a book back. That was all. He’d borrowed it in July, a collection of essays about old movies she’d insisted he would like, and he’d finished it on a flight. He had asked if he could leave it with her on his way through Saltmere.
She had said yes because a book could be handed over in a minute. It was easier than saying yes to an evening she might not be able to enjoy.
Nell lay awake in the bassinet beside the couch, working one fist free of the blanket. Celia looked at her, then at the mirror by the door. Her hair had been washed. Her sweater had nothing visible on it. These facts should not have felt like preparation for a state visit.
The knock came softly, twice.
Adrian stood on the landing with the book under his arm. He wore a faded blue shirt beneath his jacket and looked pleased to see her until he saw her face.
“Bad time?”
“No. Come in.”
He stepped around the folded stroller just inside the door. The apartment was small enough that he could see everything except the bedroom: the couch, the table beneath the window, the little heap of clean laundry she’d brought in and failed to fold. A mug stood beside the sink with a skin of cold tea on top.
“I should have tidied.”
“You have.”
She glanced around, unconvinced.
“Compared with the last time,” he added.
She looked at him, then laughed. “That was a kind thing to say badly.”
“I was aiming for reassuring.”
“You missed.”
His smile eased. He put the book on the table, then bent to look at Nell.
“She’s awake.”
“For now.”
“May I?”
She nodded. He touched Nell’s hand with one finger. The baby gripped it, released it, then made a little face as though the experiment had disappointed her.
Adrian smiled down at her. Celia watched from the kitchen doorway, tired suddenly in a way that wasn’t entirely physical. He’d come three times since they returned home, always when invited, always leaving before she had to explain she was exhausted. He brought something to eat once, fixed a sticking window after she asked, and sat on the floor while she fed Nell because he said the chair was full of laundry and the laundry looked settled.
He had not kissed her as he’d kissed her in the hotel corridor. Neither had she asked him to.
“Do you want tea?” she said.
“If you’re having some.”
“I should.”
He looked up. “Celia, you don’t have to make tea because I came through the door.”
“I know.”
She filled the kettle anyway. It gave her something to do while he looked at her daughter with a tenderness she was beginning to resent for no fair reason. She wanted Nell to be welcomed. She wanted Adrian to like her. She also wanted him to notice the woman who’d spent ten minutes choosing a sweater.
She reached for the wrong mug and knocked a spoon into the sink.
“Damn.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
He waited. She could hear the effort it took him not to offer three things.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Not terribly wrong. Just—”
Nell began to fuss, rescuing her from the unfinished sentence. Celia picked her up and settled onto the couch. Adrian moved the laundry so she had room without making a point of doing it. The kettle clicked off. He asked where the tea was, and she told him.
For a few minutes they managed ordinary things. Nell wanted feeding. Celia wanted a cushion. Adrian found the cushion she meant after offering two others. He put her tea within reach, sat in the chair and opened his own mug as though it contained something he ought to study.
“You can talk,” she said.
“I was trying not to distract you.”
“I could use distracting.”
He told her about a man who’d arrived at a meeting with the wrong presentation and spent a full minute explaining a hotel development to people expecting batteries. Celia laughed, then asked whether the man had noticed before anyone told him.
“He got to the swimming pool. I think that was when we all began to suspect.”
She could imagine it, Adrian trying to be polite while the wrong building rose on a screen. It felt good to laugh about something that had nothing to do with her body or Nell’s sleep.
“How was the book?” she asked.
“You were right.”
“I usually am about books.”
“I nearly sent you an argument about the woman who thought the hats were oppressive.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He looked at his mug. “You’d had a difficult night.”
“Most of my nights are difficult.”
“I know.”
“You could have sent it.”
He looked up. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to.”
The words sat between them. She adjusted the blanket over Nell, buying a few seconds.
“I’ve been saying no to everything.”
“Not everything.”
“Dinner. A film. You coming over on Tuesday.”
“You were tired.”
“I was. I am.” She swallowed. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll say yes and you’ll arrive and I’ll be impossible. Or Nell will cry the whole time. Or I’ll cry, which is less impressive.”
He set his mug down. “I don’t need impressive.”
“I know you don’t need it.” Her voice came out sharper than she’d meant. “I might like to manage it occasionally.”
He sat back. For a moment he looked hurt, and she wanted to erase the sentence. But he rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I miss you.”
She looked at him.
“I know that sounds unreasonable when I’m sitting in your living room.” He glanced at Nell, then back. “I miss the woman who kissed me. I’m trying not to make it another thing you have to deal with.”
Her eyes stung. She was annoyed with them. “I thought perhaps you didn’t want that now.”
“I want it.”
He said it without a smile, and the warmth that moved through her had nothing to do with the tea.
“I don’t know what you want,” he continued. “You keep telling me what you can manage.”
Celia looked down at Nell, who had relaxed against her. There were so many things she could not promise. She had been putting them between herself and the question because she couldn’t bear to be the disappointing answer.
“I’d like to go for a walk,” she said. “A short one. With both of you.”
His face changed, relief first, then something warmer. “Now?”
“If you’ll wait while I find the stroller cover.”
“I can wait.”
It took twenty minutes to get out of the apartment. Celia forgot a cloth, went back for it, discovered she’d left her keys on the table and sent Adrian in while she stood on the landing with Nell. He returned with the keys and the lipstick she’d left beside them.
He held it out without comment.
She stared at it, then at him. “That’s not essential equipment.”
“It was beside the keys.”
He looked so convincingly innocent that she laughed. She put it in her pocket, then changed her mind and used it in the little mirror by the stairs while he waited with the stroller.
Outside, the air was cool enough to feel new on her face. They walked toward the small park above the water, taking the longer crossing because it had a lower curb. Adrian pushed when she asked him to, handing the stroller back without fuss when she wanted it again.
Celia had walked here during pregnancy, measuring the distance by benches. Now the town looked as though it had continued without her: a shop newly painted, a hedge cut back, a sign advertising autumn soup. She found herself absurdly pleased that the bakery still put the same misshapen shortbread hearts in its window.
“Do you want one?” Adrian asked.
“Two. One for me. One for later me.”
He went inside and returned with three. “I considered my own needs.”
They sat on a bench overlooking a patch of water visible between the trees. Nell slept in the stroller, although Celia kept checking. She ate her shortbread slowly, butter and sugar catching against the dry place in her mouth.
Adrian sat beside her with one ankle crossed over the other. His cuff had folded back, showing the inside seam of his shirt. She wanted to straighten it. Instead she asked what he was reading now, because touching him still seemed more complicated than speaking.
“Something I won’t finish,” he said. “I brought it because it was heavy and I thought that would make me feel serious on a plane.”
“You could put a brick in your bag.”
“Less convincing cover.”
She laughed, leaning back. Sun came through the leaves in shifting patches, warming one side of her face. Adrian looked at her, and she let him. It felt almost indulgent to sit with crumbs on her lap and a baby asleep beside her while a man she wanted watched her smile.
“What?” she asked at last.
“Nothing. You look happy.”
“I am.”
She was surprised by how simply the answer came.
They talked about a film she wanted to see. He confessed he had once fallen asleep in the first ten minutes and woken to find everyone crying. She accused him of missing all the good parts; he argued that everyone looked deeply unhappy for something described as good.
Nell stirred. Celia leaned forward, waiting, but the baby settled again. Adrian didn’t speak until she sat back.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“You can.”
“Do you want me to keep asking?”
She knew what he meant. Not permission for every small thing, not an offer to make himself endlessly patient. He wanted to know whether there was still something between them he could reach toward.
“Yes.”
He nodded, looking at the water. “Good.”
“I could ask too.”
“I’d like that.”
She took a breath, then said, “Will you kiss me?”
He turned toward her so quickly she nearly laughed. His eyes went to Nell, then back to Celia.
“Here?”
“Unless the bench offends you.”
He leaned in, one hand at the back of her neck, and kissed her.
It was gentle at first, almost a question, and she answered by catching his sleeve and keeping him close. The remembered warmth of his mouth made her ache with relief. She hadn’t lost that part of herself. It was there, beneath the fatigue and the constant small demands, waiting for room.
When he drew back, his thumb moved along her cheek.
“I’ve wanted to do that for weeks,” he said.
“You should have.”
“You should have told me.”
It wasn’t a reprimand. It was slightly exasperated, and therefore more intimate than careful reassurance would have been. She laughed and rested her forehead briefly against his.
“I’m telling you now.”
“I noticed.”
By the time they returned, Nell was hungry and Celia was tired. The walk had not transformed the afternoon into a life with no inconvenience. Her back ached. She needed water. There was still laundry on the chair.
But Adrian stood in the kitchen warming the tea she’d abandoned, and she could look at him without wondering whether he had come only to admire the baby.
“I should go,” he said after he’d put the cup beside her. “You need to rest.”
“Probably.”
He smiled. “That isn’t a request to leave, is it?”
“It isn’t.”
He sat at the other end of the couch. Celia fed Nell, and they talked quietly until the baby slept again. Then she put Nell down and came back to sit beside him, close enough that their knees touched.
“I haven’t got another lovely evening in me today,” she said.
“You’ve already provided one lovely afternoon.”
“I mean I might fall asleep.”
“Then fall asleep.”
She gave him a doubtful look. He held out his arm, a little awkwardly, and she leaned against him. His shoulder wasn’t quite the right height; they shifted twice before they were comfortable. That made her smile.
She did not sleep. She stayed there listening to the ordinary sounds of the apartment, Nell’s small breaths, a car on the street below, Adrian setting his mug down carefully without moving the arm around her.
After a while she lifted her head and kissed him again, because she wanted to and because he was there.
When he left, he touched her cheek in the doorway. “Ask me again,” he said.
She smiled. “I will.”
Afterward she found the remaining shortbread in its paper bag. He had left the third one too. She ate it standing by the window, wearing lipstick that had survived nothing particularly well, and watched his car turn out of the street.