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Erin busied herself cleaning up, taking Parker’s dishes to the kitchen, finishing her own oatmeal while she was there. Back in the living room, she adjusted the sheet over Parker and brushed her hair off her forehead. Her skin was clammy. Erin shivered like she was the one with the fever.
Cassie slid up against the arm of the love seat. Erin didn’t sit next to her. She couldn’t. She sat in the chair across the room and kept her eyes on her daughter.
AnInnocentsmarathon was on the TV. It took an entire episode for Erin’s muscles to unclench. It wasn’t Cassie’s fault that Parker was sick. Sure, it felt like a sign, like the universe was pointing out they were doing something wrong, but Erin didn’t believe in signs. And she never would have interrupted Parker sleeping in—Cassie beside her on the couch or not.
Every Sunday during the semester, when Parker would call, she’d talk about reading she had to do for class, about essays and paintings and how much she hated the math class she had to take for gen ed requirements. She worked so hard. Erin was going to let her rest.
And she was resting, snoring away on the couch.
Cassie turned up the volume of the TV.
“Just put on captions,” Erin stage-whispered. “I don’t want to wake her up.”
“Why are you babying her?” Cassie asked, but she turned the captions on.
Erin looked over at Parker. Her baby. The best thing she ever did. She was strong and smart andeverything,and Erin would do anything for her. Erin had stayed in a long-dead marriage for her, had eventually left it for her.
“When you raise a kid, it’s so easy to fuck up,” Erin said. “You don’t mean to, but you do. I can’t always control whether or not I do right by her. But in this I can. She feels bad, and I can make it a little better. She deserves so much more, but this I can do.”
For a moment, there was no sound but a Folgers commercial on the TV.
“You’re too much sometimes, you know that?” Cassie said.
Erin looked at her, for the first time since Parker had come downstairs. “Should I be offended or flattered?”
Even as she asked, she knew the answer just by the look on Cassie’s face.
“Flattered,” Cassie confirmed. “It’s pretty great.”
She was still all the way to one side of the love seat. Erin didn’t need to join her. She’d had the whole morning beside her, Cassie’s toes tucked under Erin’s thighs on the couch. She’d spent most of the day lazing about so far—there were still numbers to look over for the free clinic, laundry to be done, anything would be better than sitting next to Cassie while Parker was in the room. But Cassie wasstill looking at Erin like she put the stars in the sky. Erin crossed the room and joined her on the love seat.
“Love seat” was just the technical term for a piece of furniture that sat two people. Erin had shared it with plenty of people without worrying about what it meant or what anyone would think. There was enough room they didn’t have to touch.
Theydidtouch, a blanket spread over them both, but that wasn’t the point. Parker wouldn’t think anything, was the point. If she even woke up while they were still there. It wasn’t a big deal.
After a while, Cassie slid her hand over onto Erin’s thigh. Erin fought her smile. Cassie’s hand inched toward more interesting places, but Erin shifted away.
“Cassie,” she barely opened her mouth to say it. “My daughter is three feet away.”
She tried not to think about a few days ago, when she had kissed Cassie in the pantry, just around the corner from Parker in the kitchen.
“Yeah, but she’s passed out,” Cassie whispered.
Erin leveled her with a stare, and it was supposed to be stern, but Cassie bit her lip like she was hiding a smile, and it reminded Erin of everything else she could do with that mouth.
“Okay, okay,” Cassie said before Erin could make any more terrible decisions. “I’ll be good.”
She moved her hand back a safe distance, but kept it on Erin’s thigh. By the next commercial break, Erin had tangled her fingers with Cassie’s under the blanket.
Parker wasn’t 100 percent better the next morning, but it was New Year’s Eve, so she spent the day announcing she wasnotsick and shewouldstill be having people over that night. Erin spent the day trying to dote on her without being obvious about it. Cassie spent the day trying to stay out of the orbit of Parker’s germs.
An hour before people arrived, Cassie sidled up to Erin.
“I know I convinced you things don’t have to be perfect for a party, but do we not have to clean upat all?”
Erin chuckled. “These kids have seen this house in every level of disarray—and caused it in the first place, sometimes. You’ll have to clean up whatever mess you end up making anyway. No sense doing it twice.”
Cassie didn’t argue.
