“Indeed. Come help me set up a cheese board.” Olivia sliced the cheddar into fat ribbons, which she set atop grainy crackers and handed to Luci. She selected a Cantal she knew Jake liked for its familiarity to farmhouse cheddar and a bleu. Jake claimed he only liked cow’s milk varieties, but she was secretly determined to turn him on to the ripe goat’s milk of Montchevre.
“You need to be more adventurous. When my five-year-old has a more sophisticated palate than a grown man, there is work to be done,” she teased him. She ran a knife through a ripe pear, licked the juice from her fingers, and fanned the slices artfully on the board.
“Is Jake coming?”
It was still strange to hear Luci say his name, given that she’d never once spoken to him. Olivia often wondered how that made Jake feel.
“Would you like that?”
Luci nodded. “I want him to stay for dinner.”
This was unexpected. Olivia was sure Luci enjoyed Jake; it was clear by the way she trailed after him around the house. By how close she scooted next to him on the couch when the three of them watched a movie, or the way she tipped her head back and covered her giggle with her hand when he joked around at the dinner table. But Olivia was in love with him, and it was hard to love two people who did not yet speak to each other.
“It must be your lucky day, because I already invited him.” Outside there was the sudden crunch of gravel in the driveway as his Wrangler pulled in. She wiped her hands quickly with the dish towel. “And look—here he is!”
Luci thundered to the door, hopping up and down until Jake appeared on the other side of the screen. “Salutations.” Something was hidden behind his back.
Olivia pulled him inside. Jake’s face was ruddy with sun andvigor, his two-day-old stubble rough against her cheek. “You smell good. Like the beach.”
“I was out earlier on my bike.” He pecked her on the lips, something he’d only started to do recently in front of Luci, and produced a small bouquet of wildflowers from behind his back. “For you,” he said, holding them out to Luci. “I picked them this morning on my ride.”
Luci hesitated before gingerly accepting them, and Olivia feared her heart might burst.
Jake kneeled down, naming the flowers in the scraggly bunch. “This one is called red clover, and the fancy purple one is chicory. But best of all is this one.” He pointed to a frilly yellow flower. “Can you guess its name?”
Luci said nothing, but at least this time she shook her head.
“Cat’s ear!”
This elicited a shy smile.
Olivia gasped. “Cat’s ear. Does it meow?” She bent and tickled her daughter’s ear. “What do we say to Jake?” she prompted.
Luci ducked her chin and stared at her bare feet.
“Lu Lu?”
“It’s okay,” Jake said, but Olivia ignored this.
“Just like Miss Griffin taught you in speech. What do we say when someone does something nice for us?”
After a long silence Luci looked up at Jake and made a small noise in her throat, like a squeak. “Good girl.” Olivia kissed her head, trying to conceal how much this meant to her.
“You’re welcome, Lu,” Jake said.
Later, after a quiet dinner and when Luci had been tucked in for the night, they sat in the weathered Adirondack chairs overlookingthe backyard. Jake leaned back and exhaled, contentedly. “So, it went okay with the speech pathologist today?”
Olivia shrugged. “I think so.”
“Did she say anything else about starting kindergarten?”
“Just what everyone says. That it will be good for her, having to communicate for herself. Miss Griffin says I am her crutch.” Olivia pursed her lips.
Jake did not comment on this. He knew better. There had been times when he’d wondered aloud what would happen if Olivia would only pause instead of answering on Luci’s behalf when someone asked her a question. Perhaps that might encourage her to speak for herself. It had ignited Olivia’s indignation that he should question her, Luci’smother. As if he possessed some knowledge about mutism that she did not, after years of reading every book or article she could amass, and questioning every doctor she could seek out. From pediatricians, to neurologists, to therapists. They all arrived at the same conclusion: ultimately, Luci would speak when she was ready.
Jake’s casual suggestion had irked her, causing an argument. Jake was not a parent; he had no meaningful experience with kids beyond his niece and nephews. But on the other hand, Jake was very much a people person. Quite the opposite of her, he sought out large groups and stimuli with the same zeal with which she avoided them. His social appetite was adventurous in ways hers was not, accommodating of things she would not tolerate. Like some of his bachelor friends who came to visit for a night, and ended up “crashing” for two weeks. Like the lifestyle he’d led up until they’d met, happy to wander from place to place and see what kind of work he could find. Untethered and unafraid.
Olivia was very much tethered and, since becoming a single parent, often afraid. She had no time for staying out drinking allnight, as some of his old high school friends often invited them to do. Olivia did not desire to go for a drive through the hills of New York,just because, on a fall day. When she wasn’t working for Ben, she was taking care of Luci: taking her to the library, toddler music classes, speech therapy. Her days were carved out by routine. The very thought of seeing a non-Disney movie in a theater was foreign. Even her bed was not her own space; most nights she was awakened by Luci clambering across the blankets and slipping beneath them against her. Since giving birth, Olivia had not had autonomy over her time any more than she’d had it over her body with Luci’s pregnancy. From the beginning, there had been no reason for Olivia and Jake to come together as a couple. And yet they did.
