I do not want to reckon alone either. I have been alone in rooms for eleven years, and yesterday I was alone in a cabin for a day and I was not lonely the way I have been lonely for eleven years, and last night I was not alone for the first time in my life, and the not-alone was not a thing I was going to walk away from on day five.
I do not walk away.
I sit down on the sofa. I pick the tablet up. I clear my search history and my browser cache. I put the tablet back on the shelf behind the biographies, at the same angle it had been at, because I am a woman who was raised to put things back.
I put the stew on the stove.
I make bread.
---
I am still in the kitchen when the truck comes up the drive.
She comes up the porch the way she came up the porch Tuesday night. She stops at the mat. She pulls off the boots. She sets them heel to heel. She hangs the jacket on the peg. She takes a long breath and she turns and she sees me.
I cross the kitchen.
I put my hand on her chest. I put my mouth on hers.
I kiss her.
She makes a small surprised sound against me and then her arms come around my back and she lifts me six inches off the floor, one arm under my thigh and the other around my ribs, and she walks me two steps to the counter and she sets me on the counter and she kisses me the way I want to be kissed forever.
She breaks off.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"You all right?”
"Yes."
"You?”
"I read the news."
She looks at me.
She waits. She does not ask.
"I read about my husband's grand jury. I read about my father. I read about the list of people who wanted him dead, and I thought about whether my name was going to come up on the list."
"Your name is not on the list."
"How do you know."
She looks at me.
"I know things.”
"Max."
"Yes."
"I am not going to ask you questions tonight I think I might know the answer to."
"Okay."
