Page 42 of We Are Okay

Her hair is soft against my face.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

I start to turn, but she reaches back for my arm. She scoots her body closer into mine, until the full lengths of us are touching. With each breath, I feel winter passing.

I close my eyes, and I breathe her in, and I think about this home that belongs to neither of us, and I listen to the fire crackling, and I feel the warmth of the room and of her body, and we are okay.

We are okay.

chapter fourteen

THREE ORANGES.A bag of wheat bread. A note that reads,Out Christmas shopping. Don’t steal anything—I know where you live!Two mugs in front of a full electric coffeepot.

“Power’s back,” I say, and Mabel nods.

She points to the note. “Funny guy.”

“Yeah. But kind of sweet.”

“Completely.”

I don’t think I’ve ever fallen asleep in a dark place and woken to see it in the light for the first time. Last night I made out the objects but the color was missing. Now I see the windows, that their frames are painted a forest green. If it weren’t completely white outside, the shade of the paint would match the trees. The curtains are patterned with blue and yellow flowers.

“You think Tommy picked these out?” I ask.

“I hope he did,” Mabel says. “But no, I don’t think so.”

“Do you think he killed that deer?”

She turns toward the mantel as though the deer could speak and tell her.

“No. Do you?”

“No,” I say.

Mabel opens up the bag of bread and takes out four slices.

“I guess we can go back when we’re ready,” she says.

I pour us each a cup of coffee. I give her the better mug. I take the seat with the better view because I’ve always cared more about what I’m looking out at than she has.

The kitchen table’s legs are uneven; every time we lean forward it tilts. We drink our coffees black because he has no cream and we eat our toast dry because we can’t find butter or jam. And I look outside most of the time that we sit here, but sometimes I look at Mabel instead. The morning light on her face. The waves in her hair. The way she chews with her mouth the slightest bit open. The way she licks a crumb off her finger.

“What?” she asks, catching me smiling.

“Nothing,” I say, and she smiles back.

I don’t know if I still love her in the way that I used to, but I still find her just as beautiful.

She peels an orange, separates it in perfect halves, and gives one of them to me. If I could wear it like a friendship bracelet, I would. Instead I swallow it section by sectionand tell myself it means even more this way. To chew and to swallow in silence here with her. To taste the same thing in the same moment.

“I swear,” Mabel says, “I feel like I could eat all day.”

“I bought so much food. Do you think it went bad last night?”

“Doubtful. It’s freezing.”