Zoe came down 4 minutes later, still in pajamas, and was told the same information and responded by immediately starting to plan what game she was going to make Olivia play with her after lunch, which Marcus decided was not a battle worth fighting today. Olivia arrived at 12 with flowers. Not a big dramatic arrangement. A small bunch of sunflowers wrapped in brown paper from the market. The kind that said, "I thought of you while I was doing something else. " And bought these on the way over.
She handed them to Nadia at the door, which was exactly the right move. And Nadia looked at them with great seriousness and went to find a vase. They ate sandwiches at the kitchen table. Good bread. It was easy and unforced in the way that things are when everyone at the table has stopped trying to perform ease and is just actually comfortable.
Zoe dominated most of the conversation with an extended account of a dream she'd had involving a talking elevator and a horse that could read and Olivia listened to the whole thing with the focused attention of someone who genuinely found it interesting which made Zoe escalate the detail level considerably. After lunch, Zoe made good on her plan and conscripted Olivia into a board game that had rules Zoe changed whenever she was losing. Marcus stood at the sink washing dishes and listened to the living room and thought, "This is what it sounds like when something is right. Not perfect, just right. " At some point, Robert let himself in the front door. He surveyed the scene Olivia on the floor, losing gracefully to a six-year-old.
Nadia next to her offering tactical advice that Olivia was carefully ignoring and sat in the armchair and picked up the newspaper. Marcus kept on the side table and said nothing to anyone. That was how it went. That was the new normal settling in. Unremarkable and extraordinary at the same time.
After the girls went to do homework, Olivia helped Marcus clean up. She washed, he dried, and Robert stayed in the armchair pretending to read the paper. And at some point, Marcus realized this was the first time in 2 years he'd stood at a sink next to another adult, and it had felt like partnership instead of loneliness. "I want to tell you something," Olivia said, handing him a glass to dry, low voice. Robert was 8 ft away.
"Okay," Marcus said. "I've been scared," she said. She kept her eyes on the sink. Not of you specifically, of this, of letting something matter again and then having it become another thing that didn't work out. " She paused. I've gotten very good at protecting myself and very bad at noticing when the thing I'm protecting himself from isn't actually a threat.
Marcus dried the glass carefully. "Set it down. I'm not a threat," he said. "I know that," she said. "That's what I'm telling you.
I know that now. " She looked at him. I just needed you to know it took me some time. He looked back at her. Olivia, you can take whatever time you need. Her jaw tightened the way it did when she was keeping something in.
Don't be reasonable right now, she said quietly. It's irritating when you're that reasonable. Sorry, he said and wasn't. She went back to washing dishes, but she was close enough that their arms were almost touching at the sink and neither of them moved apart from the armchair. Robert turned a page of the newspaper.
His expression was completely neutral. He was very good at that. Everything was quietly, irrevocably shifting. The first day of the Dunoody project arrived cold and clear. Marcus was on the site at 6:45.