Chapter 8: What Stays
Three months later, on a Sunday in early spring, Patricia came for dinner.
She brought a lemon cake.
She set it on the counter without ceremony and then stood in the kitchen doorway looking slightly uncertain, which was an expression I had never seen on her face before and which made her seem, for the first time, like someone I might actually know.
"Can I do anything?" she asked.
"You can keep Max from eating the cake before dinner," I said.
She looked at Max, who was already standing next to the counter with an expression of pure intent.
"Maxwell," she said.
He looked at her.
"Come and tell me about this project you've been doing at school.
Your father mentioned something about volcanoes."
Max's face transformed entirely.
"It erupts," he said.
"With actual—well, it's baking soda and vinegar, but it looks real."
"Show me the drawings," Patricia said.
He took her hand and led her out of the kitchen.
I stood at the stove and listened to them in the living room, Max's voice running fast and Patricia's coming back slower, asking questions, following where he led.
Jason appeared beside me.
"How's it going?" he asked quietly.
"Ask me in an hour."
He picked up a dish towel and leaned against the counter.
"Lauren sent the final documents through," he said.
"Everything's signed.
Gerald's confirmed the expansion.
We'll need to make a decision about the move by autumn."
"I spoke to my sister on Tuesday," I said.
"She's started treatment.
She said she'd rather we didn't move on her account."
"What do you want to do?"
I stirred the pot.
"I want to decide together," I said.
"Like people who talk to each other."
He smiled.
Set the dish towel down.
Came and stood behind me and put both hands on my shoulders, not asking for anything, just present.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For the note.
For not asking.
For all of it."
"I know."
"I'm going to be better at it."
"I know that too."
From the living room, Max's voice rose with excitement about something — the vinegar ratio, possibly, or the structural integrity of papier-mâché — and Patricia's voice rose with it, matching his energy in a way I had never heard from her before.
Jason's hands were warm on my shoulders.
I thought about the red dress upstairs.
I had worn it, finally, to the dinner with Gerald.
It had fit the same as it always had.
It had looked the same in the mirror.
It was just a dress.
It was only ever just a dress.
Dinner was loud and long and Max spilled his juice and Patricia helped clean it up without comment and Jason burned the garlic bread and nobody minded.
When Patricia left, she paused at the door.
She looked at me for a moment.
"Thank you," she said.
"For Sunday."
"Same time next month," I said.
She nodded.
Pulled her coat closed.
Walked to her car.
I stood in the doorway until her taillights disappeared.
Jason came up behind me.
"Same time next month?" he said.
"She's Max's grandmother," I said.
"And she's trying."
He put his arm around me.
We stood there in the open doorway for a moment, the spring air cool and clean, the street quiet, the house warm and lit behind us.
"Come inside," he said.
I did.
He closed the door.
And the house, which had been holding its breath for so long, finally let it go.
---
Sometimes the thing we were most afraid of losing was never in danger — we just forgot to say so out loud.
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