This latest excursion—a boutique-winemaker conference—had been relatively simple, but she was relieved to be home. She had a whole week ahead of her without traveling, a rare treat, and she meant to take advantage of it. Peter was already up and at it when she got out of bed—she could tell because the house smelled deliciously of coffee, the hazelnut kind he indulged in on weekends. Ariel was still asleep, she was pretty certain. She hoped so—she didn’t feel like getting fully dressed yet, and she knew that her bralessness inside one of the many ratty T-shirts she slept in made him uncomfortable. She’d noticed him averting his gaze before. It was heartbreaking, how she’d become old and repulsive to him at some point, her body’s existence embarrassing him. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, and she knew it was normal, but she still felt a twinge of pain when he looked away from her like that. A reminder that the last link of intimacy between their bodies, once babushka-dolled one inside the other, was severed for good. She put her hand on Ariel’s shut and locked door and silently bid him to sleep a little longer, just until she had the energy to get dressed.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” Peter said when she passed his office. Iris waved but kept going to the kitchen and coffee. He followed her there and hugged her from behind as she poured herself a mug.
“Mmph,” she said, elbowing him to let her go, and got the milk from the fridge. He put his hands up, surrendering with a grin. “It’s Sunday, and it’s morning, stop being so perky,” she groaned at him. But she didn’t mean it. This was Peter, and she loved how unfairly upbeat he was.
“What are you up to today?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen island. Without waiting, he went on. “I have some errands to do, and I’m catching up on that project for the museum, they’ve asked for some more adjustments, but—”
“Honey, why oh why don’t you put it in your contract that you’ll only do two or three rounds of changes before adding an additional fee?” Iris shook her head. Peter was a good artist, a good graphic designer, but not the best businessman. She should know; she was the one who did their taxes and dealt with their finances. Some years he barely made a profit, what with the subscriptions to various software and the way he took his time with projects. She was the one who’d really kept them afloat. Peter’s income was chump change in comparison to the fees she charged her clients.
He shrugged. “They’re a nonprofit. I’m okay with doing a bit more work.”
Iris didn’t understand him in this way, how much he seemed to enjoy the work in itself and how little monetary value he placed on his time. She took a sip of coffee and decided she didn’t care. This was an old argument, a boring one, and they were doing all right right now, still paying the mortgage, alas, but also building their savings back up, preparing a small nest egg they could hopefully leave their children. Which reminded her. “You know, Anya asked me yesterday when I’m planning to retire.”
“No!”
“Yes, she really did. I don’t think she meant it to sound so rude. But she’s more ambitious and grasping than she realizes.”
“Are you dangling that in front of her now?” Peter asked. Iris raised her eyebrows. He knew her well. It was a good way to keep the excellent assistant around, hinting at a possible promotion, a passing of the baton she wasn’t planning on anytime soon. “Anyway, sorry, what did you say you were doing today?” he asked.
“I didn’t yet, but yeah, I have to take my stuff to that dry cleaner that’s open on Sundays, you know the one, the Ocean Breeze place or whatever it’s called. Other than that, I’m going to relax a bit. Oh, and volunteering tonight,” she added, offhand, though of course she hadn’t for a moment forgotten about it.
“Ah, yes, my wife the do-gooder,” Peter said. “Well, I hope you relax in my office at some point. I’d love a nap on the chaise with you.”
Iris palmed his cheek before hugging him. She reveled in the way his arms squeezed her torso just a little too hard, anchoring her. She’d been gone only three days, but still, it was always so good to be home.
* * *
• • •
BY THE TIME Ariel emerged from his bedroom, Iris was dressed in her weekend clothes—a pair of loose-fitting slacks and a light cotton long-sleeved shirt—and was lounging on the living room couch with the latest Faye Kellerman novel. He traipsed in with both his hands scratching around inside his gray sweatpants and yanked them out when he saw her, like a child caught with his fingers in the cookie jar.
“Hi,” he said. “I thought you were coming back tomorrow?”
“Nope. How’re you doing, kiddo?”
“Ugh.”
“Still no word from . . .” She struggled to recall the name. Lena? Leonora? Leanna? “. . . that girl you like?” she ended up saying.
“I don’t like her, Mom. It’s not like that. We’re friends.” Ariel stomped to the kitchen and put his head in the fridge.
“Right,” Iris murmured, only half to him. The girl in question had been friends with Ariel all through college so far, and had visited with him for Thanksgiving once and for spring break another time, and Iris was fairly certain Ariel was in love with her. She could picture the girl’s sweet face, her clean-cut girl-next-door looks, the drab brown hair that always looked like it just needed a good shampoo-commercial makeover to make it shine. But her name—Iris was bad with names, some days. She always had been, especially outside of work, but she wondered idly if it was getting worse. Or if she was being paranoid because she was in her sixties and was expected to be decrepit. Her own mother at this age had looked and acted so much older than Iris looked or felt, which made sense, of course. After all, being humiliated and marked and moved around, suffering a terrible loss, living through a war, and then immigrating to the United States ages a person. “Hey, Ariel, want to come with me to the dry cleaner’s?”
He lowered a bottle of orange juice from his mouth, where he’d been sucking on it ravenously. “Um. Not really?”
Iris laughed, loving him for his honesty. “Fair enough.”
* * *
• • •
IN THE EVENING, Iris gathered her purse and keys and set out for the second time that day. Peter didn’t know what she was really doing at the Caring Place, the assisted-living facility she’d been visiting almost weekly for the past couple of months. There were plenty of things that Peter didn’t know about the way she spent her time, and she was sure there were just as many things she didn’t know about how he spent his. Still, she felt uncomfortable—she wouldn’t say guilty, but only because she’d tried to scrub that useless emotion away a long time ago—having a secret so close to home, to Peter. She wasn’t worried about Ariel, since he’d never expressed much interest in her life outside of her involvement in his, though as he got older, she supposed that would change. It had for her. But home was hers and Peter’s sacred space, and though he was the true homebody of the two of them, Iris had enough respect for him and for what they’d built together to have a modicum of unease.