I know. So which one are you? He thought about it honestly. Both. He said depending on the day.
She looked at him. Something was moving in her expression that she wasn't covering and he stayed still and let it move. I haven't let anyone in since David, she said. David was the ex. She'd mentioned the name once before and not again.
I've been fine with that. I told myself I was choosing it deliberately, that I was protecting my peace. She stopped. And now, Marcus said carefully. She looked at him.
Now I'm wondering if I confused protecting my peace with just being afraid. The room was very quiet. Marcus didn't move. He didn't reach for her or say something that would fill the space before it was ready to be filled. He just sat with her in it the way Robert had taught him to sit with silence and waited.
I'm not afraid of you, she said. Good, he said. But I'm afraid of She stopped again, pressed her lips together of it not working, he said. Yes, she said. Olivia, look at me.
She looked at him. I can't promise you it works. He said, "Nobody can promise you that. What I can tell you is that I've spent 2 years watching everything I thought was solid fall apart. And what I learned is that the thing that keeps you standing isn't a guarantee.
It's a person. One person who shows up," he paused. "I show up. That's all I know how to do. But I do that one thing completely. " She held his gaze for a long time.
Then she said, "I believe you. " two words. She didn't yell them or whisper them. She said them the same way she said everything. Clear and without hesitation once she decided. He reached over and put his hand over hers.
She didn't pull back. They sat like that for a while. And whatever had been unresolved between them settled, not with a declaration or a ceremony, but with two people sitting in a quiet living room with their hands touching, which is sometimes all it takes. Three weeks later, Olivia drove Marcus and the girls to Robert's house for Sunday dinner, which had become its own kind of institution. Olivia cooked.
Robert sat at the head of the table and pretended he wasn't delighted by the chaos of two children at his dinner table. Marcus cleaned up and nobody discussed how this arrangement had become a standing one because discussing it would have made it awkward and it wasn't awkward. After dinner, after the girls were watching a movie in the living room, and Robert had claimed his armchair, Olivia pulled Marcus into the kitchen and shut the door halfway. "I need to tell you something," she said. He looked at her face.