8 November 2026
Maren woke with Simon’s hand beneath her cheek and a ridiculous certainty that she had missed a school alarm.
Then she saw the wide window, the trees, the blue quilt sliding off his shoulder. Sunday. No school. The light had the soft grey quality of a day that had no intention of hurrying.
He opened one eye.
“Everything all right?”
“I thought I was late.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
He smiled, still half asleep. “Could we put everything off until after coffee?”
She moved closer and kissed the warm place beneath his jaw. He woke more thoroughly then. His arm came around her, drawing her against him, and the strange luxury of finding him already there made her close her eyes.
They had agreed a late train home. She could stay in this bed, be kissed slowly, let him bring coffee and make a joke about his inability to locate crockery. There were hours available. No one needed her to put on trousers yet.
Her phone rang on the bedside table.
Willa’s name appeared above the sitter’s number. Maren sat up so quickly the quilt fell to her waist. Simon picked it up and settled it across her back without speaking.
“Hi, love.”
“Where’s the silver shoe?”
Maren looked toward the unfamiliar window.
“The princess’s shoe?”
“Yes. The big one.”
“Have you checked the puppet box?”
“It isn’t there.”
There was the sound of rummaging. The sitter said something gently in the background, offering to look under the sofa. Willa rejected that possibility on the grounds that the shoe did not go under the sofa.
“Try the fruit bowl,” Maren said.
“The fruit bowl?” Simon mouthed beside her.
She nodded.
A pause, a scrape, then Willa said, “Found it.”
“Good.”
“Did you have breakfast?”
“Not yet.”
“We had pancakes.”
“Were they good?”
“Mine looked like a glove.”
Maren laughed, and the laugh caught oddly in her throat. She could picture the kitchen with absolute clarity: the plate, the sticky counter, Willa holding up the pancake. A whole morning had happened without her.
“Are you having a nice time?” she asked.
“Yes. We’re going to the little playground. Is it cold there?”
“A little.”
“Wear your scarf.”
“I will.”
Willa handed the phone to the sitter before saying goodbye. The practical account was reassuring: slept well, ate well, no problem, they would be home before Maren. Maren thanked her and ended the call.
For a moment she kept holding the phone.
Simon touched her shoulder. “Everything all right?”
“Yes. A shoe emergency.”
“Grave.”
“Resolved.”
He leaned forward and kissed her bare shoulder above the quilt. The pleasure was immediate, followed so closely by longing for her daughter’s sticky face that she could hardly distinguish the two.
“I want to stay,” she said.
“All right.”
“And I want to go home.”
He drew back, not offended but considering.
“We can take an earlier train.”
“I don’t think it’s the train.”
She set down the phone and turned toward him. He was watching her with his morning face, less guarded and more attractive than any photograph on the company website. She wanted another night with him already. She wanted a dozen.
“I made this a separate life in my head,” she said. “Come away. Be a woman who can spend all morning in bed. Then go home and be the other one again.”
“I like both.”
“You’ve met the other one at dinner. She gave you chicken and a manageable amount of chaos.”
“Three portions of chicken.”
She smiled, but he didn’t let the joke settle the question.
“I don’t know what an ordinary week looks like,” he said. “I know that. I’d like to.”
The words frightened her more than another seductive invitation would have done.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I was about to ask for another weekend. I still want one. But I don’t want the only time I see you to require someone else taking over your entire life.”
Maren pulled the quilt closer.
“Willa isn’t part of an arrangement I can transfer.”
“I know.” He sounded briefly impatient, then stopped himself. “No. I don’t know enough. That’s the difficulty. When could I see you both again?”
“You want to?”
“Yes. Though if she’s planning another trial, I may need legal representation.”
She laughed. This time the ache in her throat eased.
“Tuesday,” she said. “It’s not an occasion. I need to pick up groceries. She needs to do her reading. The boiler makes a noise that sounds like a boat leaving.”
“Should I bring a life jacket?”
“No. Bread, perhaps. And don’t expect a special meal.”
He rested his hand over hers. “Tuesday.”
She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. They had not answered every frightening thing. He was asking to spend a Tuesday with a child who might prefer him in the cupboard. She was allowing it because she wanted him there, which made the invitation hers to risk.
“Now,” he said after a while, “may I offer coffee to the woman who hasn’t had breakfast?”
She lifted her head. “In bed?”
“If I can find a tray.”
“I have faith.”
It took him nine minutes and two trips. On the second he returned with toast, coffee and the pastry he had saved from yesterday. She moved the quilt aside and made room. He sat beside her and stole the corner of her toast, which she permitted only after reminding him of his own plate.
The phone lay quiet on the table. Maren left it there.
They walked after breakfast, a shorter route this time, past a stretch of water visible between the trees. Simon brought a thermos and accepted her congratulations with excessive modesty. She wore the scarf Willa had reminded her about.
At a bench they sat shoulder to shoulder and watched a dog persuade its owner that a stick needed rescuing. The dog had thrown the stick into the water itself. The owner nevertheless took responsibility.
“An effective management technique,” Simon said.
“Don’t try it at work.”
He handed her the thermos cup. She warmed her hands around it and told him about the birthday felt expedition Blake had agreed with Willa for next Saturday. She heard how careful she sounded and stopped trying to disguise it.
“I want her to enjoy it,” she said. “And I’m jealous of an afternoon that hasn’t happened yet.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.”
“It is. Not because I want him. I don’t.”
“I didn’t think that.”
She looked at him. He was watching the water, his profile very still.
“Did you?”
He took a moment. “Sometimes I wonder what it will feel like when you can talk about her with somebody who was there at the beginning.”
“He wasn’t there.”
“No. You’re right.”
“But he’s her father. That will be something I can’t rearrange until it feels easier.”
Simon nodded. She liked that he hadn’t told her it would all become simple. The thought that he might feel left out frightened her; she could already imagine responding by controlling the seating, the invitations, everybody’s proximity until nobody had to admit wanting a place.
She handed back the cup. “You don’t have to win an afternoon.”
“I’d probably choose a terrible afternoon to win.”
“Tuesday, for example.”
“Tuesday remains highly competitive.”
She laughed and rested her head against his arm. The dog emerged from the water and shook itself beside its owner, who made the sort of noise Maren understood without needing words.
They stayed until the coffee was gone.
Back at the house, Simon made sandwiches while she gathered their bags. In the bedroom she found the dark blue nightdress over a chair and held it for a moment before folding it away. She did not need to leave an object behind as an excuse to come back. The thought was pleasing enough that she slipped it into her bag without staging a decision.
Downstairs he had put two sandwiches on plates and forgotten to sit down. He was staring through the kitchen window.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. I was thinking I’d like you to come again.”
“I’d like that too.”
He smiled, and she crossed the room before either of them could make the invitation more reasonable.
On the train, she fell asleep against him for twenty minutes. When she woke, his book was open in one hand and the other was resting over hers. He had not moved her for his own comfort.
They parted outside her building just after five. He kissed her once, not lingering because the sitter was waiting upstairs. She put a hand on his cheek before he stepped away.
“Tuesday.”
“Bread. No life jacket.”
“And Simon?”
He looked back.
“Thank you. For the weekend.”
His expression warmed in a way that made leaving feel hard all over again. “Go upstairs before I become unreasonable.”
She did. Halfway up, she heard Willa’s feet at the door.
“Mum. You have to see the glove.”
The glove pancake had been photographed. Maren admired it, paid the sitter and found herself listening to a densely detailed account of two days that had contained no disaster and many small events worth explaining. She sat on the rug while Willa demonstrated the rediscovered silver shoe.
“Did you have a nice time?” Willa asked again, as if now there could be a fuller answer.
“Yes.”
“Did Simon make pancakes?”
“Toast.”
“That’s easier.”
“It is.”
Willa put the shoe on the princess’s wooden handle. “Blake says we can get the purple felt on Saturday. Can you tell him I need the thick one?”
“You can tell him. I’ll remind you when you speak.”
“Okay.”
Maren helped gather the puppet pieces. Her body held the memory of Simon’s hands; her lap held a tissue-box horse bed. It was a peculiar combination and not an unpleasant one.
Later, when she unpacked, she found a bakery bag tucked into the side pocket of her overnight case. Inside was one last pastry, carefully wrapped, with a note on a torn piece of plain paper.
For the Monday that will insist on arriving.
She sat on the edge of the bed and ate half before deciding she was allowed the rest. Then she messaged him that the pastry had survived.
A relief, he wrote. I entrusted it to a very attractive courier.
She smiled, crumbs on her skirt, and told him to bring the same cheek on Tuesday.