She passed another plate. That's how he does things. Slow, careful, real. It takes what it takes. She looked at Victoria sideways.
You didn't push. I didn't want to push, Victoria said. I know, Celeste said. That's why it worked. She handed Victoria a serving dish and said, "You're good for him.
I've been watching you all day. You don't try to fill the space Dana left. You're building something different. " She turned off the water and dried her hands. That's the only way it can work. The only way he'd let it.
Victoria stood in Celeste's kitchen holding a serving dish and thought about what it meant to build something different rather than trying to fill a shape that already existed. She thought about what Marcus had said on the porch in October. I can't afford to let something into this house that's going to leave a hole bigger than the one it filled. She had not tried to fill Dana's hole. She hadn't known how.
She'd just shown up and brought herself and let that be what it was. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the whole thing. She was still thinking about it when Marcus found her in the hallway 20 minutes later putting on her coat because it was nearly 9 and the drive was 5 hours. You don't have to leave tonight.
He said I have a 7:30 tomorrow. She said you could call in from here. He said it was the first time he'd said anything like that. The first time he'd suggested the 5 hours of highway could be managed differently. She went still.
He looked at her carefully. I'm not saying, he paused. I'm saying you don't have to drive 5 hours at 9:00 at night every time. Marcus, there's a room, he said. There's always been a room.
I just wasn't saying it. She looked at him in the hallway of his sister's house with the sounds of his family behind them and said, "Why are you saying it now? " He thought about it honestly, which was the only way he did anything because Ava told Celeste she was pretty sure you were going to be around for a long time. He said and Celeste told me and I thought about it and I think Ava's right. He looked at his own hands for a moment. She usually is.
Victoria said nothing. I'm not asking you to rearrange your life, he said. I'm asking you to stop pretending the drive is manageable so you can give yourself an excuse to keep your distance. The accuracy of it was bracing. She felt it land and she didn't flinch.