Page 142 of Wreckage and Rain

"It was nine degrees and the windchill was negative twelve and you stood on the observation deck and stared at the lake and a single tear came out of your right eye and you wiped it with the back of your glove and pretended I didn't see."

"I didn't pretend you didn't see. I conceded the point and we moved on."

"I love you."

"I love you. Go to your class. Come home."

He kisses me at the door. Once. Quick. The new way. The asking-without-asking way. I kiss him back and step into the hall.

The new apartment is in Lincoln Park, on the second floor of a brownstone, with a real kitchen and tall windows and a fireplace I've decided to use even though we have central heat. We have been here for six weeks. We're still unpacking. There's a box in the front hall marked TWENTIES that we haven't opened and may never open. It doesn't contain anything urgent. It contains the parts of Charleston I couldn't throw away and couldn't look at and so I've decided to let it sit in the hallway as a kind of permanent residue I'm going to address in March or April or June.

***

Bex puts me in the front row now. She has done that since the milestone show in October. I'm no longer in the back of the room hiding in the mirror. I'm in the front, with my hair tied up, in shorts and a tank top, and I do the choreography with the same body that did it on the stage that night, the body that lives in my own skin without apology now, the body that's been mine my whole life even though I only met her months ago.

Lucia is in the corner with the babysitter Marisol pays for in cash from the Sunday show. She waves at me with a fist full of crayons.

"Auntie's hair is bad today."

"Auntie's hair is on purpose today."

"On purpose bad."

Marisol from across the room, mid-stretch: "Lucia. We don't insult Auntie's hair in the studio."

"Outside the studio?"

"Outside the studio, if Auntie asks."

Lucia nods, satisfied with the jurisdiction, and returns to her crayons.

We do the class. Bex pushes me. The transition from second to third movement still defeats me sometimes. Bex makes me do it three times in a row at the end while everyone else is putting on their coats, and I do it because she says so, and the third time I get it.

"You'll get it on the night."

"I always get it on the night."

"That's correct. I'm tired of you telling me you aren't sure you will."

"I'll stop saying it."

"Thank you. Out."

I gather my coat. Lucia trundles over with a piece of construction paper.

"Auntie. I made this for you. It's a horse who is also a moon."

"That's the best kind of horse."

She nods solemnly and returns to her bag.

***

I get home at noon. Colt is at the kitchen table in his reading glasses with the laptop and a stack of folders, working through the Bennet Ventures Q1 forecast. He looks up.

"Lucia made me a moon-horse."

"Where on the wall is it going."