“I’d say we’re at an impasse on this, except for one thing.”
“What thing?”
“It’s going to depend on how you answer the question. Which is, do you believe women should get equal pay for equal work?”
“What? Yes. Why?”
“Good, because this discussion would veer off into another avenue if you’d said no. Do you also believe women have the right of choice?”
“Jesus.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Yes.” He saw exactly where she was taking him, and began to work on a rebuttal in his head.
“Excellent. That saves a long, heated debate. Rights come with responsibilities. It’s my choice how I live my life, who I’m with, who I care for. It’s my right to make those choices, and I take the responsibility.”
Her eyes narrowed on his face. “Oh, go right ahead.”
“And what?”
“Raised by a lawyer,” she reminded him. “I can see Mr. Harvard Law thinking through how to make a complicated argument to tangle up all my points. So go ahead. You can even throw out a couple of ‘wherefores.’ It won’t make any difference. My mind’s made up.”
He shifted gears. “Do you understand how much I’ll worry?”
Abra tipped her chin down, and those narrowed eyes went steely.
“That always works for my mother,” he pleaded.
“You’re not my mother,” she reminded him. “Plus you don’t have mother-power. You’re stuck with me, Eli. If you cut me loose, it has to be because you don’t want me, or you want someone else, or something else. If I walk away, it has to be for the same reasons.”
Feelings on the table, he thought. “Lindsay didn’t matter anymore, but every day I regret I couldn’t do anything to stop what happened to her.”
“She mattered once, and she didn’t deserve to die that way. You’d have protected her if you could.” She rose, went to him, slid her arms around his waist.
“I’m not Lindsay. You and I are going to look out for each other. We’re both smart. We’ll figure it out.”
He drew her in, stood with his cheek pressed to hers. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He didn’t know how he would keep that unspoken promise to her, to himself, but he’d do whatever he needed to do to keep it.
“Smart? I’m following a recipe for morons.”
“It’s your first day on the job.”
“I’m supposed to cube that chicken. What the hell does that mean?”
She drew back, then moved in again for a long, satisfying kiss. “Once again, I’ll demonstrate.”
She was in and out of the house. Early classes, cleaning jobs—his included—marketing, private lessons, tarot readings for a birthday party.
He barely knew she was there when he was working, yet when she wasn’t, he knew it acutely. The energy—he was starting to think like her—of the house seemed to wane without her in it.
They walked on the beach, and though he’d firmly decided cooking would never be a form of relaxation for him, he pitched in to help now and then.
He had a hard time imagining the house without her. Imagining his days, his nights without her.
Still, when she urged him to come the next night she worked at the bar, he made excuses.
He did want to continue researching the dowry, the ship, he reminded himself. He carried books out to the terrace to read there while he still had enough light, and settled down near the big terra-cotta pots Abra had planted with purple and yellow pansies.
As his grandmother did, he remembered, every spring.
They’d take the cool nights, even a frost if they got another. And that was likely, he thought, despite the blessed warm spell they’d enjoyed the last few days.
People had flocked to the beach to take advantage. He’d even spotted Vinnie through his telescope, riding waves with the same flash and verve he’d had as a teenager.
The warm, the flowers, the voices carried on the wind, and the cheerful blue of the sea nearly lulled him into thinking everything was normal and settled and right.
It made him wonder what life would be like if all that were true. If he made his home here, did his work here, reclaimed his roots here without the nagging weight still chained around his waist.
Abra flitting in and out of the house, filling it with flowers, candles, smiles. With heat and light and a promise he didn’t know he could ever make, ever keep.
Thoughts and feelings on the table, he remembered. But he didn’t know how to describe what he felt with her or for her. Wasn’t at all sure what to