Dileia had arranged the camping chairs while the food was finishing and had strong opinions about where each one should go relative to the river view and the swing and explained those opinions at length. And Marcus and Clare let her make all the decisions and ate in the chairs she'd placed and watched the river go dark in the late September evening. After dinner, Dileia lasted about 30 more minutes before she fell asleep in one of the camping chairs with her head tilted back and her mouth open. In the way that only children and the very untroubled can sleep. Marcus picked her up and carried her to bed.
She didn't wake up. She was nine now, almost too big for this, but not quite. He pulled the blanket over her and stood there for a moment in her doorway and felt that same pressure in his chest, the full kind. When he came back to the porch, Clare was on the swing. She'd kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet up beside her, and she had her coffee decaf this late, and she was watching the river the way she watched things she'd liked, fully present, without any part of herself somewhere else.
Marcus sat down next to her on the swing. It moved under his weight, settled, held. For a while they just sat there, the river, the dark, the sound of the September insects starting up in the trees. The particular quality of a quiet that had nothing in it that needed managing. You built this because you wanted somewhere to sit with me in the evenings.
Clare said she said it the way she said certain things as a statement, not a question and with the particular edge of someone who's figured something out and is enjoying knowing it. Marcus looked at the river. I built it because the house needed a porch. Marcus, the structural value of a covered porch is Marcus. He looked at her.
She was watching him with that expression. The one that had no performance in it. Just directness and warmth and 6 years of having paid close attention to him before he was paying attention back. Yeah, he said. I built it so we'd have somewhere to sit.
She didn't say I knew it. She didn't say anything. She just settled more firmly into the swing beside him and looked back at the river. And the satisfaction in her face was the quiet kind, the kind that doesn't need to be spoken. They sat.
The river moved. After a while, Clare said, "Vanessa's engaged." Marcus turned to look at her. To Bradley Whitmore III. No, she ended that in the spring.
To someone new. A pause. A man named Dennis. He's a contractor. Builds custom homes.
He grew up in Chattanooga. What do you think of him? I've had dinner with him twice. He's steady. He's funny in a quiet way.
He looks at Vanessa like she's someone he's glad to have found. Clare turned her cup in both hands and when I walked into the restaurant the second time and they were already there. He stood up, not because it was protocol, because he meant it. Does Vanessa look at him the same way? A pause.