Really good. Jallen looked at his face and apparently found sufficient evidence for whatever he was assessing because he turned back to the sauce satisfied. Clare said, "You had a big meeting. " Marcus looked at Clare. She raised one shoulder slightly without looking at him, not an apology. Just an acknowledgement that yes, Jallen had asked and she had confirmed what she could confirm without overstepping.
I did, Marcus said. Was it good big or bad big? Good big like future big. Marcus looked at his son 9 years old one missing sock. The left one always the left one.
His mother's eyes his grandfather's instinct for the loadbearing question. Yeah. Marcus said future big. Jallen nodded like this was exactly what he had expected. Cool, he said.
Dinner in 10 minutes. Set the table. The spaghetti was slightly overcooked and the sauce needed salt and it was completely fine. They ate at the kitchen table under the light that had become their light. And Jaylen talked about the soccer game coming up that weekend.
And Clare told him about a time she had played on a recreational team in San Francisco and had been spectacular libad in a way that was apparently very entertaining for all involved. And Jallen laughed with his mouth open. And Marcus sat at the head of his own table and looked at the two people in his kitchen and thought about the specific language his son used without knowing he was using it. Future big. That was exactly what it was.
After dinner, after Jallen was in bed, after the dishes were done, in a cooperative silence that had its own particular warmth, Marcus and Clare sat at the table with the last of the evening between them. "I have to tell you something," Marcus said. She looked at him. Okay, I've been thinking about the advisory role, about what it means for the longer term. He chose his words carefully.
If I take it, and I think I'm going to take it, it changes things. It means I have a version of my life that I haven't had access to before. Something larger, more public, maybe. He paused. And I've been doing this thing where I imagine that future and then I immediately check it against what Jaylen needs, what the job needs, what's practical, which is correct.
Those things matter. But then I stop there. I don't let myself check it against what I want. Clare was very still. So I'm checking it, he said, against what I want.
And what I want, he looked at her directly. What I want includes you. Not as a context, not as a supporting factor, as a thing I want on its own terms. He held her gaze. I'm saying it clearly because I said I would stop being compressed about things, and this is me doing that.