Page 353 of The Lies We Play

“The one you’ve been arguing with for four months?”

“The one I’ve been arguing with for four months.”

“To whom?”

“A foundation in Madrid.”

“Did they meet your price?”

“They met my price plus a stipulation.”

“Which stipulation?”

“That the painting goes on a five-year loan to the institute first.”

“That is excellent, and you did that without me.”

She lifts her chin, eyes bright with victory and exhaustion. “I told them I wasn’t going to argue about a painting I’d been losing sleep over for four months with a board that hasn’t put a woman on it since 1996, and they agreed to my terms in twelve minutes.”

Creed says, all nasal from the floor, “So what are you fixing? For a non-lawyer who decided to never practice, you fix too many documents.”

I look at the folder.

“I’m filing for recognition of a civil partnership between Creed Lafontaine and the existing marriage between Halston Saint Claire and Olivia Crane Saint Claire, subject to registration and supplemental affidavits in New York.”

Creed says, “Hal.”

“Yes.”

“In English.”

I look at him.

He has put his phone down on his chest. He has taken the washcloth off his forehead and is holding it in his hand as if he’s meeting it for the first time.

I say, “It says they’re going to let me put your name on the paper.”

Creed sits up.

He sits up the way a person does when the body understands before the mind can defend itself.

“They’re going to let you—” He stops, lips pressed together. “Me. You. Liv?”

“Yes.” I close the folder because I can’t keep looking at it and at him at the same time. “All three of us.”

“On a piece of paper?” His voice breaks around paper, and he looks furious at himself for it.

“On a piece of paper,” I say.

“Hal.”

“Creed.”

He puts the washcloth down on the tile.

Then he puts his hand over his face.

He sits that way for a long second, shoulders bent, bare feet flat on the old floor, this beautiful man who spent ten years being made into a witness line and still stayed.