Chapter 8: Downstairs, After
Most of the guests had quietly found reasons to leave.
Daniel was still there.
And Patrice.
And the older woman from near the kitchen, whose name was Vera, and who Adrian had known since before Naomi was born.
The food was still on the counter.
The soft music had stopped at some point without anyone turning it off.
Naomi was sitting on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, a glass of water on the cushion beside her.
She looked up when Adrian came in.
He sat down next to her.
"Is it done?" she asked.
"Not entirely," he said.
"But we talked."
"Okay."
He looked at the room.
At Patrice, who was sitting across from them with her hands around a coffee cup.
At Daniel, who was standing near the kitchen and gave him a small nod.
At Vera, who was watching them both from the armchair with an expression that didn't need words.
"I owe you an apology," Adrian said to Naomi.
She looked at him.
"I saw the signs," he said.
"For a long time, I think I saw them.
And I told myself it was adjustment.
New family.
Growing pains." He stopped.
"I didn't ask you directly.
I didn't make it clear enough that this was your home.
Unquestionably.
Without conditions." He met her eyes.
"I should have done that years ago."
Naomi was quiet for a moment.
"You didn't know all of it," she said.
"I knew enough to have asked."
She nodded slowly.
"Yeah," she said.
"You did."
It wasn't forgiveness, exactly.
But it wasn't distance either.
It was the specific honesty of two people who love each other and have let something go unaddressed for too long and both know it.
Vera leaned forward from the armchair.
"Your mother would have said something long before tonight," she said to Naomi.
"She had a way of making things plain without making them ugly."
Naomi smiled — small and real.
"She really did."
"You've got some of that," Vera said.
"The way you handled yourself tonight.
The way you spoke to him." She nodded toward Adrian.
"That took steadiness."
"I've had a lot of practice being steady," Naomi said.
The room held that for a moment.
Then Daniel said, from the kitchen doorway:
"There's still food.
And I, for one, have not eaten.
And I think it is extremely unreasonable that a birthday party ended without anyone having dessert."
Naomi laughed.
It was the first laugh of the evening, and it changed the room the way a window opened in a closed space changes air.
Adrian looked at his daughter and said nothing.
He didn't need to.
Vera got up and went to help Daniel with the plates.
May you like
Patrice caught Naomi's eye from across the room and raised her coffee cup slightly, like a small quiet toast.
Naomi raised her water glass back.
