28 November 2026
The drawer contained a screwdriver, two old receipts, three buttons and a photograph Maren had forgotten was there.
She took out the photograph first. Willa at three, holding a large wooden spoon with the concentration of a person about to conduct an orchestra. Maren smiled, set it beside the lamp and began clearing the rest.
Simon stood in the bedroom doorway with a cup of coffee in each hand.
“Am I interrupting a repair?”
“No.”
“That seems unlikely, given the evidence.”
She took her cup and nodded toward the drawer.
“For you.”
He looked at it. The drawer was not large; one runner stuck if she pulled it too quickly. She had wiped away the dust, but a pale mark remained where a piece of tape had spent several years doing no useful job.
“I thought your toothbrush and a few things. Here. You can leave them.”
She sounded almost formal. It irritated her. She had asked him to stay in a much more interesting way less than thirty-six hours ago, yet this little rectangle of wood made her fingers clumsy.
Simon set his coffee on the dresser, came to stand beside her and opened the drawer carefully.
“I have to offer you a better one than this now.”
“You don’t have to compete over drawers.”
“Too late. I’ve started.”
She laughed and leaned against him. He put an arm around her waist, looking at the space as if she had offered something much finer.
“I’d like that,” he said.
“I’ll keep a few things at yours too. If you still want.”
He turned her toward him. “I still want.”
The kiss was slow, interrupted only when somebody knocked on the bedroom door with far more force than its thin panel required.
“Mum. Are we doing the library?”
“Yes,” Maren called. “In half an hour.”
“You said half an hour already.”
She looked at the clock. Her daughter was entirely correct.
At the library Willa hunted for the next dragon book while Maren sat at the end of an empty table. Simon had gone to make two calls, promising to meet them outside. They didn’t need to conduct every small part of Saturday together to prove they meant December.
Maren opened the museum’s terms for the last time, checked the date she’d clarified and wrote her acceptance. Three visits, fabrication here, February installation. A real schedule with things she would need to arrange, rather than a daydream that could remain beautiful by never being attempted.
She pressed send.
Her phone vibrated almost at once, and she nearly laughed at her old reflex before seeing Anika’s name.
Someone from an independent children’s publisher asked about a short film. Paid. They saw the rehearsal cut yesterday. I’ve asked for the brief.
Maren read the message twice. Then she typed congratulations, deleted an offer to help and asked whether Anika wanted to celebrate with coffee next week.
The reply came while Willa was searching beneath the table for a book she had apparently put there herself.
Coffee yes. Wednesday. I choose the place.
Of course.
She put the phone away. There was no contract yet, no certainty that the new inquiry would become a film.
Willa emerged with the book and a dusty knee.
“I found it.”
“Excellent.”
“Can we leave now?”
Maren stood. In the quiet warmth of the children’s section, with somebody else’s lost mitten beneath the next chair, she felt an almost ridiculous rush of pleasure. Boston had her answer. Anika had a new person asking for her work. Her daughter had found a dragon with an apparently very complicated future. It was enough for one morning.
Blake’s call came while they walked home. Maren stopped beneath an awning, handed Willa the bag of library books and listened to the two times he proposed.
“Saturday the fifth, the park and lunch,” she repeated. “Then Sunday the thirteenth, at yours for the afternoon?”
“If that works.”
Willa was tracing a cracked paving stone with one shoe. Maren bent the phone away from her ear and asked her. Her daughter wanted the park, but not lunch at the place with the red sauce. For the next visit she wanted to take the cat again, and the sketchbook.
Maren passed the phone down. Willa explained the sauce herself. Blake asked a question, heard the answer and agreed they could find another place.
When the phone returned to Maren, there was nothing left to negotiate except the collection times. They settled those, wished each other a good weekend and ended the call.
Willa took her hand.
“Can we get bread?”
“Yes.”
“The soft kind.”
“Yes.”
They found Simon outside the bakery, examining the window with the grave attention of a man who could justify any pastry as research. He looked up when Willa ran ahead, then caught Maren’s eye and smiled.
“Soft bread,” she told him.
“A worthy ambition.”
They bought bread, two pastries and a plain roll Willa wanted despite having no further appetite. Simon carried the paper bag. Maren walked beside him, letting her daughter choose which side of the pavement they used.
That afternoon they made the first shape of December while Willa drew on the floor. Simon sat beside Maren at the table, looking at the dates she had put in her ordinary notebook. Christmas Day here; a visit to his apartment the weekend before if Willa wanted to see the lights in his neighborhood. No move, no grand new household announced in the margins. His coat could remain on her hook tonight.
For January, her established sitter could cover the two nights of the first Boston visit, with the usual school arrangements. Maren would confirm the booking herself. Simon wanted to see her the night before she left, then make supper at his place when she returned.
“I may be late,” she said. “The train won’t care about your menu.”
“Then it will be a very forgiving menu.”
She wrote supper on the return date. The word pleased her almost as much as the commission had.
Willa came to the table to show them a horse with eight legs. She had deliberately added one to the horse’s total from the show and wanted the improvement acknowledged. Simon asked whether it ran faster; she told him no, it tripped more. He accepted the explanation.
Later, when she went back to drawing, Maren touched his hand.
“I accepted Boston this morning.”
“Good.”
“And Anika’s got an inquiry. For her own film.”
“Excellent.”
He waited, smiling, while she failed to hide how happy she was.
“Do I look unbearable?”
“Rather beautiful.”
She felt herself blush. Even now. He brushed his thumb across her knuckles, clearly pleased to have done it.
In the bedroom his toothbrush lay on top of the dresser. He had brought a new one from the small pharmacy near the bakery, along with a comb and a packet of ordinary socks. Maren watched him open the drawer and put them inside. The socks took up most of the space. He looked back at her, amused.
“An excellent drawer.”
“It sticks.”
“I noticed.”
He shut it carefully. She went to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him before he could improve the runner or make any other useful offer.