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Eli and I used to have amazing sex. I was never left unsatisfied. He had an almost lazy way of touching me that used to make me crazy. Even after we started sleeping in separate bedrooms, Eli would occasionally, in those early days, come to me late at night. He would wake me up with his head between my thighs or by rolling me over and sliding inside me. I would pretend to sleep through the beginning of it, and he would stroke me until I couldn’t hide it anymore, until he knew I was awake and wanting him.
But then one day he came to me when I was still half awake. I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t know what he was doing, and I asked him to leave. He was devastated, and he stared at me like he didn’t know who I was. But he left, and the next time he came to me in the middle of the night, I had locked the door. I can still remember the way that he’d jiggled the knob, and then he’d made an incredulous noise like he couldn’t believe I’d locked him out.
Then I’d heard him breathe out the words “okay, Bess,” and he’d never come to my room in the middle of the night again.
After he stopped coming to me, I missed him, but I told myself it was for the best, that it would ease the inevitable break between us, but all it really did was make me feel even more lonely. But once it was done I couldn’t take it back. He never again came to my room in the middle of the night and I never went to his.
And that was the beginning of the end.
“Hey, Bess,” Aaron suddenly says from his spot on the other side of the fire.
“Hey, Aaron,” I respond, the way I always have.
He chuckles and says, “Do you have big plans this weekend?”
I look up at Eli and he says nothing. “Do we have plans this weekend?” I ask hi
m. He looks startled for a second, like he’s wondering if the two of us are a we. His hand stops moving, and he takes a sip of his beer like he needs a second to think.
“Not that I know of,” he replies. He addresses Aaron. “Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking about going to visit my mom this weekend,” Aaron says.
“Do you need me to go with you?” I ask.
“Oh, no.” He waves a breezy hand in the air. “I was going to fly up and stay a day or two.”
“All by yourself?” I say. Then I realize what I’ve done. He’s a grown man and he doesn’t need a caretaker—at least not yet.
He looks over at Sam, who grins at him. “No, I thought I’d take Sam with me.” I can tell they’ve already discussed this and she’s a co-conspirator. “So I was kind of wondering if you might let Kerry-Anne and Miles stay with you.” He rushes on to say, “It would only be for a day or two, depending on how things go with my mom.”
“How’s she doing?” Eli asks.
He shrugs. “She has good days and bad days.”
I’m guessing that he wants to go and talk to her about his plans for the future and what’s going on now, but I don’t ask about any of that. Eli tips his head so that he can look down into my face.
“You feel like watching the kids?” he asks me.
“Do you?”
He shrugs. “I don’t see why not.”
“We can take them,” Jake offers. “If Bess and Eli are busy.” But Katie shushes him with a tap of her fingers to his thigh. “What?” he asks her, like he’s confused.
“Shush,” she says.
That makes me grin. “We can do it,” I say with a nod.
“Are you sure?” Aaron stresses. He stares at me like he’s looking for clues about what I’m feeling.
“It’s not like we have big plans.” I lift my face to look at Eli. “Did you have big plans?”
He shakes his head. “Fishing. Swimming.” He shrugs. “Aside from that, I have nothing going on.”
“So that’s settled,” Mr. Jacobson says firmly. “Thank God.”
“Pop,” Jake says petulantly. “Cut it out.”
