“Are you enjoying your summer?”

“Yes. I work from home but my schedule is flexible, so we’ve been able to do some fun things.”

“What do you do?” he asks.

“I’m a graphic designer. Freelance,” I add. “I usually work on a per-project basis.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, very much. It’s nice being able to choose what I work on.”

“We’re talking about redesigning our department logo. The chief has asked for ideas but we’re not a real creative group.” Daniel pulls a business card out of his pocket and hands it to me. “This is our current logo. They want something similar, but updated. The last I heard they were going to set aside budget money to hire someone. Send me your rates; my e-mail address is on the card. I can put in a good word for you if you’re interested in submitting a bid.”

“That would be great,” I say. I walk over to my purse and pull out one of my own business cards, then hand it to him. “I have professional references and testimonials listed on my website.”

He takes the card. “Thanks.”

The sliding glass door off of the kitchen opens, and Josh yells, “Mom?”

I call out to him. “In here, Josh.”

He follows the sound of my voice and he and Griffin stop suddenly when they see Daniel. “We didn’t mean to do it,” Josh yells.

“It was Gage’s idea,” Griffin adds.

“Do what?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Josh hedges, stammering.

“It was an accident,” Griffin adds. He’s gone ghostly white.

I turn to Daniel. “You have a lie detector down at the station, right, Officer Rush?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Daniel says. “Let me know if you’d like me to take these boys off your hands.”

I stare at Josh and Griffin pointedly, watching their expressions change, their shoulders slumping in defeat. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“We were chasing Jordan around with a handful of worms. She said she was gonna have us arrested.” He points at Daniel. “And look!”

Daniel presses his lips together, trying his best not to smile. I seize the opportunity to administer a lesson. “Well, I suggest you go outside and apologize before I turn you over to the authorities.” They hightail it out of the room immediately and the sliding glass door slams.

“Nice work,” Daniel says.

“I try,” I say, laughing. “Those boys torment her constantly. She can hold her own, but they had this one coming.”

Daniel’s radio squawks and he turns up the volume and listens.

“Busy night?” I ask.

He turns it back down. “No. It’s been slow. This is a nice diversion, actually. I should probably get going, though.”

“Okay. Thanks again for the sign. I really appreciate it.”

“Sure.”

Daniel follows me to the front door and we step outside where the temperature is considerably warmer. He pauses on the front porch. “E-mail me,” he says. “About the logo.”

“I will.”

“Have a nice night, Claire,” he says, smiling at me.

For some reason, the smile makes me blush. I feel the heat on my cheeks, deepening the color I already have. Hoping he doesn’t notice, I say, “You, too, Daniel.”

I watch as he walks down my sidewalk, gets into his car, and drives away.

16

claire

When Chris had been out of work for eight months we spent the last of his severance on Christmas presents for our families and the kids, deciding to forgo gifts for ourselves, both of us insisting that we didn’t need anything. We weren’t often extravagant with each other, so it wasn’t a big adjustment for us, but Chris seemed a little down about it. He’d always done a good job of finding just the right gift to give me and he wasn’t the kind of husband who ever forgot my birthday or our anniversary.

With his severance depleted, our only source of income was our savings and the money Chris collected from his unemployment benefits, money he initially hadn’t wanted to apply for at all. “You’re entitled to it,” I reminded him. He hated filling out the monthly paperwork, and even more than that, he hated filling out applications for jobs he was completely overqualified for just so he could show that he was indeed attempting to find a job. The realization that his applications were going unnoticed, that no one was even considering him for those jobs anyway, was even harder for him to take.

I walked into the office one snowy January day with a bowl of soup and a sandwich. The omelet I’d made him for breakfast was still sitting, untouched, on the plate I’d delivered four hours earlier. “Chris. You didn’t eat your breakfast.”

He didn’t even look up from the computer screen. “I’m not hungry.” He rubbed his temples, like I was a pain he could massage away.

“You can’t just stop eating,” I said.

He sighed and pushed his chair back from the desk. “I said I’m not hungry.” I started to speak but Chris cut me off. “You know what, Claire? What I really need is for you to leave me alone,” he said. “Stop asking me how I’m doing. Stop asking if I’m eating, or sleeping. Just stop.”

He’d never lashed out at me like that before, but he had an expression on his face that worried me more than his tone or his words: It was the look of sheer desperation. The pupils of his eyes were dull and flat; the blue lacked sparkle and the whites were streaked with red. I wanted to throw my arms around him, say something, anything that would make him feel better. But the realization that he didn’t want those things from me, that I was only making it worse, brought tears to my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll leave you alone.”

So I stopped hovering, stopped asking him how he felt or if there was anything I could do, and he retreated even further into himself, barely speaking to me. Before long, he wasn’t the one with whom I shared the highlights of my day; Elisa or Bridget, or sometimes Julia, filled that role. I didn’t seek Chris out the way I once had, as a partner, a confidante. Certainly not as a lover. Finding new ways to cope, to satisfy the needs he once met, unsettled me. I felt as if my world had been turned upside down, but in a completely different way than his had been. He had a goal, and once he found a job, his worries would disappear. But in the interim, I had no idea what to do about mine.

Our household dynamic shifted, buckled under the weight of its problems until the only option was to adapt lest the whole infrastructure crumble. Self-preserving in the short term, absolutely disastrous for the long haul.

We did it anyway.

 • • •

I sought refuge at my parents’ house one particularly lonely, desolate winter day. My mom was standing near the stove when the kids and I walked into the kitchen, and I inhaled the smell of pumpkin bread as I shrugged out of my coat. My spirits lifted instantly; it smelled like my childhood and to let someone else be the parent that day was exactly what I needed.

“Well, this is a nice surprise,” my mom said when the kids ran toward her, almost knocking her over in their haste to smother her in kisses. “Your timing is perfect. I was just about to make the dough for chocolate chip cookies while the bread is baking.”

“Can we help, Grandma?” Jordan asked, jumping up and down.

“I get to help, too,” Josh said, elbowing his sister out of the way.

“Josh,” I admonished. “Tell your sister you’re sorry. You can both help.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

My mom got out the big white bowl, the same one she’d been mixing cookie dough in my whole life. She instructed the kids to wash their hands and began lining up the ingredients on the kitchen counter.

I looked around. “Where’s Dad?”