The Birthdays (33 page)

“You weigh at least a thousand pounds,” she huffed.

“So do you.”

“Always the charmer, you.” She went to push open the front door.

“Someone has to be.” He moved onto the plywood ramp and inside.

That evening, they sat over plates of food leftover from the birthday dinner. Hilary told Daniel about what had happened with Alex, about Bill David and George and Camille, and about how she sometimes thought about calling George but she wasn’t sure she should; after all, what would be the point? Daniel said she was probably doing the right thing, moving here and starting over on her own. “Starting over is usually the best thing for you,” he said. “But this Alex guy? I’m not so sure.”

“Well, neither am I.” She stood to clear the dishes. “But I’m telling you, he knows his way around a bed.”

“Sex—I think I remember what that is.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be.”

“I can’t help it.”

She left their dishes in a stack in the sink, vowing she’d wash them soon, or later that night, or maybe tomorrow, and she went to the living room to join Daniel, now flipping through a newspaper. As she glanced out the window at the fading gray sky, she decided that this must have been what a good marriage was like: sitting in a room together, unremarkably reading a newspaper and not worrying what the other person was thinking or trying to come up with something to say. She knew Daniel’s humor and temper and fears like she imagined an old wife would know her husband’s. She loved him despite the things she didn’t love about him, that he could be moody and a little bossy, a little too parental with her sometimes. She loved him ten times more than she didn’t love these things.

Hilary rested her arms on her stomach and felt a stillness inside. The baby had been turning all day, and must have finally fallen asleep. It was the strangest sensation, something inside of her drifting off to sleep while she sat there, awake and alert. Something so very separate from her at the very core of her body, someone she’d never seen or heard, but felt distinctly every day.

Outside the cold water continued to spill onto the rocky beach. The moon became sharper in the blackening sky, and she could just see the sliver from where she sat. Daniel breathed a sigh and turned a page of the newspaper.

For various colors
of wisdom, support, friendship and generosity, my deepest appreciation to Jill Bialosky, Evan Carver, Chris Castellani, Bill Clegg, Jessica Craig, Emily DeGroat, Henry Dunow, Hannah Griffiths, Nicole Lamy, Don Lee, Winfrida Mbewe, Amy Robbins, Deborah Weisgall and Susie Wright. Also to my sister, Margot Geffen, for her insights and enthusiasm; my family, my first experience of love; and mostly, to my husband, Neil Giordano, the first to believe, and without whom I could never have written this book. Thank you.

Heidi Pitlor’s fiction has appeared in
Ploughshares
. This is her first novel.