She drove up the hill at five-twenty. The sun had already dipped below the western ridge, the road wet and shining from the light shower earlier. When she arrived, the gate at the estate was already open, so she pulled into the driveway and parked next to Alexandra’s car and sat there for a moment with her hands on the wheel.
She had been here many times. She had been here for dinners, for nights, for the early mornings when she left before Alexandra woke. She had been here as a woman who was always about to leave. She picked up the bag and the plant and got out of the car.
Alexandra opened the door before Simone reached it. She had changed out of her pantsuit and was now in jeans and a soft crimson sweater, her hair down, and barefoot. She looked at Simone holding the plant and the bag.
“Come in,” Alexandra said.
Simone stepped inside. The house smelled like something was cooking—onions, garlic, the slow start of a meal. Alexandra closed the door behind her and reached for the bag without asking. Simone let her take it.
“Where would you like this?” Simone asked, still holding the plant.
“The kitchen, I think. The window ledge over the sink.”
Simone carried the plant down the hallway, and Alexandra followed her. The kitchen was warm. She saw a pot on the stove and a glass of red wine on the counter with a paperback novel turned face-down beside it. Simone set the plant on the windowsill above the sink and stepped back. She turned the flowerpot a quarter turn so the leaves caught the kitchen light evenly.
“It looks like it belongs there,” Alexandra said.
Simone couldn’t answer her immediately. The sight of the plant in Alexandra’s kitchen was something Simone couldn’t have predicted would make her emotional. She felt it in her sternum first then somewhere behind her eyes.
“Yes,” she finally said. “It does.”
Alexandra lifted the lid off the pot again and stirred. “I made the soup my mother used to make. I hope that's all right. I didn't want to do anything complicated tonight.”
“That’s all right. I bet it’s going to taste amazing.”
“There’s wine open if you want some. I already pulled down a wine glass for you on the island.”
Simone walked around the island and picked up the glass, then poured some wine. She took one slow swallow. Alexandra was at the stove with her back to her, stirring, and Simone watched her—the line of her shoulders under the soft sweater, the way her hair fell forward when she leaned over the pot, her bare feet on the cold tile that she had not put slippers on for.
“Tess sent me a note this afternoon,” Simone said. “She wanted me to tell you congratulations. She said the morning numbers were the prettiest thing she'd seen in a year.”
Alexandra laughed, a small, surprised laugh that Simone hadn’t heard from her before. “Tess sounds like someone I would like.”
“You’d like her.”
“You’ll have to bring her by sometime.”
The casualness of the line resonated within her in a way she hadn’t braced for. Alexandra was planning for a future. A future Simone would be in. Simone set her glass down on the counter carefully.
“What?” Alexandra asked, glancing back.
“Nothing.”
Alexandra looked at her for a beat longer, then she turned back to the stove. “Come help me. There’s bread in the oven, and I’ve forgotten about it twice already.”
Simone helped her with the bread, then helped ladle the soup in bowls. They ate at the kitchen island, side by side, on the high stools. The soup was white beans with celery, carrots, and spinach with a rich broth and Italian spices. Simone hadn’t eaten anyone’s family recipes in a long time, and she ate slowly to savor every bite.
Alexandra refilled her wine glass without asking and they talked about nothing: Audrey's text from London, the weather, a book Alexandra had been trying to finish for three weeks and could not seem to start over from where she had left off. Simone listened and watched as Alexandra lifted a piece of bread, set it down again, and picked it up. She watched the small unselfconscious movements of a woman who was at home in a room and in her body.
She felt a wave of emotion settle in her chest. It had risen in her at the door, when Alexandra had taken the bag from herwithout asking, and it had risen again when Alexandra said that the plant looked like it belonged in the kitchen, and it had risen a third time when Alexandra said that she should bring Tess by. She had been suppressing the urge to confess the scope of her love out loud all night, even though she knew, deep in her bones, that she would say it tonight. But not here, not yet.
Alexandra reached over and refilled Simone’s water glass without looking up from her bread, and Simone watched her, the sentence bubbling up inside her again.
“Are you tired?” Alexandra asked.
“No,” Simone said. “I’m not. Are you?”
“No, but I’d like to go upstairs.” She stood up and extended her hand to Simone. “Come with me?”
