Page 62 of Never Alone

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The kitchen was very quiet.

Cole and I looked at each other.

I had nothing to say. Cole, mercifully, did.

"That's a good point, bud."

"Right?"

"Right." Cole looked back at me again. The look held for a beat. "Tessa and I will talk about it. Then we'll figure it out."

"Okay."

"Eat your chicken."

Noah ate his chicken.

I picked up my fork again. The chicken was very good. I couldn't have told you what it tasted like.

Noah went to bed at nine. Cole read with him for ten minutes—he'd taken over the bedtime story routine the second week we'd been here, and Noah had started waiting for him on the bed like he'd never had a bedtime story from anyone else. By nine-twenty, Noah was asleep. By nine-thirty, Cole had eased the door shut behind him.

I was at the kitchen sink, rinsing the dinner plates when he came back in. He didn't go to the table. He came over to the sink, picked up the dish towel, and started drying.

We stood there for a minute and worked.

"He's right," Cole said.

"I know."

"It's a good idea, separate from everything else. He's nine. He's going to be ten in March. Boys his age want their own rooms."

"I know."

"It also makes the rest of the apartment read the right way for the GAL."

"I know."

I set the last plate on the rack. Cole took it and dried it. He set it on the stack.

"He goes in my room," Cole said. "I move into yours."

"That's the part I'm trying to figure out."

"What part?"

I turned to face him. I dried my hands on a corner of the towel he was still holding.

"I've been sleeping in there with him. The arrangement was?—"

"I know."

"And now?—"

"I'll sleep on the floor."

I looked at him.

"You'll what?"

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