Chapter 5
Sophie had gone heavy against my chest on the couch. Not asleep, but that drowsy in-between where her breathing slowed and her head found the hollow under my collarbone. The blanket was pulled up around her, that light patterned one from the doorway, and her bare feet were tucked against my leg. I'd turned off the big light and left the lamp on in the corner, and the house made those small settling sounds I'd forgotten about.
I'd been home an hour. Maybe more. Long enough that my uniform had started to feel too warm and my knees ached from kneeling at the threshold for so long. Sophie hadn't asked where Lauren was. She'd just kept her hand fisted in my sleeve like if she let go I'd disappear again.
Then headlights washed across the front window.
I saw them sweep the gray siding and cut through the blinds. The sound of tires on our driveway, slow, then the engine cutting off. Sophie stirred.
"Mommy?" she whispered, not lifting her head.
"Yeah," I said. "That's Mommy."
She didn't move to get down. She pressed closer.
Through the window I watched Lauren sit in the car. The porch light was still on, that warm yellow we'd left burning every night of the deployment because Sophie was scared of the dark. It lit the driver's side of her old Subaru and I could see her silhouette behind the wheel. She didn't get out right away. Her hands stayed on the wheel a few seconds longer than they needed to. Then she killed the lights and sat in the dark for a beat.
I remembered that hesitation. Lauren always did that before coming inside when she was bracing for something. Groceries on the passenger seat, keys in her lap, taking one breath before the door.
She opened the door and got out. She had two paper grocery bags in her arms. She balanced them and pushed the car door shut with her hip, then stood there looking at the house. At the duffel bag I knew she could see from where she stood, still against the wall by the door where I'd left it. The porch light caught her face and I saw it change.
She came up the sidewalk slowly. Sophie lifted her head now, watching the door with me.
The lock turned and the door opened a few inches and stopped when it hit the duffel. Lauren had to push it with her shoulder.
She stepped inside and saw us. The grocery bags were high against her chest. Her hair was pulled back, she wore her work sweater, the navy one with the sleeves pushed up. She looked at me on the couch in my uniform, at Sophie wrapped in the blanket on my lap, and her mouth opened and then closed again.
"Daniel," she said. Quiet. Almost a question.
"Hey," I said.
We looked at each other across the entryway. Three feet of old rug and cold air from the open door between us.
"You're early," she said. Her voice was low. She glanced at the duffel again. "You said the thirtieth. I thought— I didn't think you'd be here until Sunday."
"I got on the earlier manifest," I said. "They had space."
She nodded like that made sense. She didn't put the bags down yet. Her arms were tight around them.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I was just grabbing a few things. I didn't know you'd be here. The house—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I didn't want Sophie here alone. I would have—"
"I know," I said. It came out softer than I meant it to.
Sophie watched us both, her eyes going back and forth. She didn't understand the careful way we were talking.
Lauren's eyes dropped to the duffel again. It was right by her feet, the camouflage bulk against the light wall, half-unzipped where I'd pulled out Sophie's bear to give her. Something in Lauren's shoulders eased and tightened at the same time. Relief, I could see it plain as day in the way her eyes welled, and then right behind it guilt, in the way she looked away from me quickly and down at the floor.
She let out a breath she must have been holding since the driveway.
"You left it there," she said.
"I didn't know where to put it," I said.
She nodded. She finally bent and set the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter just inside the doorway. Milk and bread and a bag of apples. The ordinary things. Her hands lingered on the counter after she let go, fingers spread on the laminate.
"Mommy, Daddy's home," Sophie said. Like she was reporting it. Like Lauren might not have seen.
"I see, baby," Lauren said. She tried to smile at Sophie and it wobbled. She didn't come to the couch. She stayed by the counter, one hand still flat on it like she needed the balance. "You waited, huh? You did so good waiting."
Sophie nodded, her cheek back on my chest.
Lauren looked at me again over Sophie's head. We didn't hug. We didn't move toward each other. The porch light kept spilling in through the open door behind her and the cold November air was coming in with it, but none of us moved to close it. The three of us stayed like that, in the entryway and the living room and the kitchen, all in the same small house and still with that distance between us that you could feel in your chest.
May you like
"Daddy's home," Sophie repeated, softer this time, and she tugged the blanket higher around her shoulders.
"I know, sweetheart," Lauren said quietly. She glanced at the empty hallway toward the bedroom, then back at the duffel by the door. "I know."
