Page 72 of Full Contact

Mark: Question from the press box. Second period, third time you went back for the puck, Rook stopped short behind the net. Was that planned, or did he lose interest?

Trier: Planned. I’ll explain tomorrow. Bring the lasagna.

***

Peaches turned fifteen at the end of October.

We’d pushed the birthday shoot back after the emergency hospital visit. Dr. Feld had no objection to a party.

Mark brought the harness swatches to the condo instead of making me come to his office, and we laid them out on the dining table in the afternoon light. Peaches walked across all of them and sat down on the green.

“That’s a vote,” Mark said.

We ordered the green.

Priya filmed for forty minutes. There was no hat. Anna had wrapped one present, a new felt mouse, and set it on the rug in a nest of tissue paper. Peaches climbed into the tissue paper, turned around twice, and lay down on top of the mouse. She stayed there for the rest of the shoot.

It was the first cut that went through Leah. She approved it with one note: The tissue paper is the episode.

I approved it too. Then I sent it to the list.

***

I got home a little after six with a loaf of bread under my arm and heard cupboards opening before I’d finished turning my key.

We’d agreed in late October that on Thursdays Mark should let himself in instead of waiting in the lobby with his arms full. Mark had baked a lasagna at his place. He was in my kitchen with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

I set the bread on the counter. Mark turned around, and I kissed him hello. He tasted faintly of mint. His hand settled at my waist. I started to pull back, but he insisted on another kiss.

Peaches watched from the little wooden chair.

“Felix asked about the chicken,” Mark said. “I told him the capers fixed it.”

“The extra lemon fixed it.”

“He wants to know who added capers to his recipe.”

“Tell him it was you,” I said.

“I did. He says the lemon was also wrong.” He pulled the foil off his pan of lasagna and slid it into the oven.

I took a bread knife from a drawer and began to slice the bread.

Mark crossed to the speaker on the bookshelf, tapped his phone, and came back as strings started.

I listened for a few bars. “This is the car commercial again.”

“It’s Vivaldi.”

“I know. You told me that last Thursday, but it still makes me want to test-drive something.”

“The cook gets to choose the music,” Mark said. “That’s our rule.”

“I made salad. It’s in the fridge.”

“That’s not cooking. That’s chopping.”

I let Vivaldi play.