The thoughts about dates and different men were passing fancies. A match flare compared to the steady light and heat that were her feelings for her husband.
She sighed and gestured to the table. "What's all this mean, David?"
"It's our net worth. What we've accumulated in the last almost fourteen years."
She shook her head. "I don't understand."
"You thought I didn't want you. Of course I do. I'm showing you what we've done together. What we've built." He huffed out an impatient breath. "I'm trying to convince you to come home. To stay."
"Do you want me or my 401(k)?"
He looked at her as if she was speaking in Russ's babbling baby language. "Both. They go together. Your plan is in your name."
He refused to understand. Instead of talking to her about what was going on with him and why he'd altered, he was trotting out paperwork. Exhausted, she dropped into the armchair adjacent to the sofa. "I don't know, David...."
He rose, his expression panicked. "What? Tess, don't you get it? Don't you see?"
"See what?"
He threw a hand in the direction of the files. "This is what I have to offer," he said. "This is what is on the table."
But instead of the columns of numbers and the neatly compiled accounting of what David thought summed up their worth - his worth - Tess only saw that photograph. Their four beautiful, beloved children. The family that he had somehow reduced to file folders and appraisal forms. Rising, she picked up the frame and held it with both hands so he could see.
"This is what's on the table." With tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, she stalked toward her bedroom. "This is what you have to find a way to value."
He didn't follow, and she didn't expect him to. In her bedroom, she closed the door and leaned against it, holding her children's picture against her heart. Was it any good knowing who you were and where you wanted to be in your life, she thought, if the person with whom you wanted to share that life wouldn't share himself?
* * *
JANE WATCHED Griffin hand the sleeping baby to his sister. Then Tess glanced toward Duncan and Oliver, crashed on the couch at No. 9, their heads together and their bodies lax, like a pair of rag dolls put down for the day.
Following her gaze, Griffin sighed. "Fine, I'll carry one next door."
Jane raised her hand. "I'll get the other."
"I can do it," Rebecca offered. "We left you with the s'mores mess."
Griffin gave Jane a look. "Yeah. You stay here and clean up. Get ready."
The look, the ominous note in his voice, tripped a shiver down her spine. Get ready for what? But Jane thought she knew, so she reined in her imagination and gathered up the marshmallow bag, the graham cracker box, the straightened wire clothes hangers and took them into the kitchen. Back by the dying fire in the living room, she found the last square of chocolate and popped it into her mouth.
She was licking a sweet trace from her thumb when Griffin stalked back inside. The door slammed behind him. His gaze snapped to her face, and she froze, her lips still sucking her flesh.
"What do you think you're doing?"
With a slow movement, she released her finger and let her hand fall to her side. Her palm pressed against the cream-colored lace of the swingy shorts she wore with a tennis sweater she'd found one day thrown over a chair. She supposed it was Griffin's - well, she knew it was, because the cotton cable-knit held his smell, that dry sage and lemon scent that was starting to pervade her dreams. If he had a problem with her co-opting his clothing, he'd kept it to himself.
"You don't like s'mores?" she asked. "I think you had at least three."
"I don't like turning into my sister's go-to babysitter," he said. "Those kids should stay on their side of the fence."
"It was one evening so your sister could visit with her girlfriend," Jane said, waving away his complaint. "They're your niece and nephews."
"I've got enough to worry about," he muttered. "Now, I'm talking to Rebecca's history class with that crabby coot next door."
Jane managed not to smile. "That was very kind of you to agree."
"Have you ever tried saying no to a thirteen-year-old drama queen?"
Now she grinned and clasped her hands together, holding them over her heart. "Please, Uncle Griff," she said in a theatrical tone. "If you don't say yes