Page 75 of Goodbye Paradise
Caleb wasasleep in our bed when I got there. I peeled off my clothes and brushed my teeth. Then I climbed into the bed and fit my body up against his.
Maggieknew. And nothing had changed for me. Except that I didn’t have to leap away from Caleb anymore if we were standing close to one another when someone else arrived at home.
His warm, solid body felt so good against mine. I tucked a hand around his waist and squeezed.
“Hi,” he said sleepily. “You okay?”
I buried my nose in the back of his neck. “Yes. Except I had a total meltdown at this wedding. That was a little embarrassing. But I’m over it now.”
He struggled to roll over to face me. “Really?”
I nodded in the dark. “Maggie knows now.”
His eyes closed. “That’s good?” He seemed too sleepy to keep talking.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “It really is.”
Caleb slept. And after I lay there admiring him for a while, so did I.
Twenty-Three
MIRIAM’S BUSWASN’T DUE into Pittsfield until the next afternoon. So Maggie went out for hours to shop, while I took delivery of a king-sized mattress and box spring. When the truck rolled up the gravel drive, I directed the deliverymen to bring it up to the apartment.
But there was a problem with making the turn up the stairs, so Daniel came out to help by taking the apartment door off its hinges, buying a crucial couple of inches of extra room to negotiate.
Meanwhile, I stood around holding Chloe and blushing furiously as Daniel helped the men set up a bed for Caleb and I in the sleeping loft we’d built.
“Do you want to try the mattress before we drive away?” one of the men asked.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said quickly, turning a darker shade of red.
“Me,” Chloe demanded, reaching for the cushioned surface with both arms.
“Okay,” I said, happy for the distraction. “You try it.” I let her gently fall to the bed, chubby arms first.
“Big,” she pronounced, sitting up, looking around.
“Yup,” I said, wondering if it was possible to burst into flames from embarrassment.
“Sign here,” the delivery guy said. I scribbled my name, and that mortifying little chapter of my day came to an end.
Whistling, Daniel went back to his workshop, and I followed him down the stairs.
“Dada,” Chloe said, watching him disappear.
“Dada has to work for another hour. You and I are going to eat lunch.”
“Nums,” she said as I carried her at a trot toward the house.
“That’s right.”
Inside, I made her a bowl of Maggie’s barley soup. Setting her into the high chair, I picked up the spoon and offered her a bite with a bright orange cube of carrot on it.
She ate some soup, humming to herself between bites. The “mm-mm” sound she made when she was hungry was priceless. It was hard to believe that I actually got paid for this. Caleb was under a car somewhere in a frigid garage, and Daniel was out in his workshop trying not to saw off his fingers. But my work day would include a mandatory nap, and snuggling on the couch with a book.
Eventually, Chloe lost interest in the soup and began pointing at a square of cornbread I’d tried to conceal behind the napkin holder. It was awesome cornbread, but I’d been saving it until after the soup was gone. “Nums,” Chloe demanded.
“This is what you want?” I said, pulling it into view.
