Not just the evaluating attention he'd gotten used to, but something that was adding to the inventory recalibrating. You're surprising, she said. Is that a compliment? It's an observation. A pause.
It's also a compliment. He looked back at his work folder. He was aware of her looking at him for a moment longer before she looked back at her screen. He focused very hard on the work folder. He got very little done.
Tyist 3550 Saturday was Daniel's fault. Marcus knew this with complete clarity because Daniel called at 9 in the morning to ask how things were going and Marcus had said fine. And Daniel had said fine like how and Marcus had said fine normally and Daniel had said that's great man. Tell Avery. I said hi and Marcus had said will do and hung up and stood in the kitchen with the phone in his hand and thought Daniel has no idea.
This was not an accusation. Daniel had asked Marcus to help his sister. Trusting the 16 years of friendship that meant Marcus Reed was the kind of man who could be trusted with something that mattered. Daniel was not wrong about Marcus being that kind of man. The problem was that being that kind of man did not make the thing going on in this house less real.
It made it more complicated. Marcus put the phone down and told himself to get it together. He did not get it together. He got it approximately adjacent to together which was the best available option. Tickspree 3820 Avery had no work on Saturday.
This was new information that Marcus processed at 8:30 when he heard movement in the kitchen and found her already there. Coffee made Zoe's cereal on the counter ready for the bowl wearing jeans and a shirt that did not require performing anything reading something on her phone. She looked up when he came in. I made coffee, she said. I see that.
I figured it out. Yours is better than mine, but I'm getting closer. He poured a cup, tasted it. You're close. What am I missing?
Less water. The ratio is slightly off. How much less? I'll show you. They stood at the coffee maker at 8:30 on a Saturday morning.
And Marcus showed her the ratio. And she watched like she watched everything all the way. No part-time attention. And they made a second cup. And he tasted it.
And she tasted it. And it was right. And she looked personally satisfied in a way that was completely disproportionate to the stakes of the situation. That's it, she said. That's it.
I'm writing it down. It's just coffee. You keep saying that. It is not just coffee. She found a pen in the kitchen drawer, the second drawer, which was where he kept pens and tape and the small flashlight, which meant she had looked through his drawers at some point, which he could not find a reason to object to, and wrote the ratio on the inside cover of the small notebook she apparently carried everywhere.
Zoe appeared at 8:47, assessed the situation, and said, "We should do something today. " Marcus looked at her. "Like what? " "Onside something. " Zoe looked at Avery. "Do you like outside? " "I like outside," Avery confirmed. "Peedmont Park is good on Saturday," Zoe said. "We haven't gone in a while. " She looked at Marcus with the expression that was just slightly too careful to be casual.
"The three of us could go. " Marcus looked at Zoey. Zoe looked back at him with the open transparent face of a seven-year-old who had not yet learned to disguise an intention. "It's cold," Marcus said. "48°," Avery said, reading her phone. "Cold, but walkable. " He looked at Avery.
She met his eyes with an expression that said, "I see what Zoe is doing, and I'm going to let you decide. " Marcus looked at his daughter. Zoe looked back at him. "Fine," he said. Get your coat. Texters 4315.
Piedmont Park on a Saturday in late October was full of Atlanta doing exactly what Atlanta did in good cold weather walkers. Joggers, a group of older men playing chess at the stone tables. A family with a dog that Zoe identified Fi as a golden doodle from 40 yards out and assessed as loud but manageable. They walked. Zoe moved ahead of them the way children did, not running but not walking.
That particular child pace that required occasional adjustment from the adults to keep up. Marcus and Avery walked beside each other. Close enough because the path required it. Far enough because it didn't. How is she with the loss?
Avery asked. Quiet enough that Zoe couldn't hear. Marcus was quiet for a moment. Better than I expected. She was four when Viven died.
Old enough to understand gone, but young enough that the full weight of it comes in pieces. She'll have another piece when she's 10, another when she's 16. He paused. I try to make sure the pieces are manageable when they come. You do that by keeping her mother present.
The way you said her name last night. He looked at her. You didn't dodge it, Avery said. You said her name and you said what was true about her and you let Zoe hold it. A lot of people avoid the name.
Like saying it makes the loss more real. Avoiding it makes the person more gone. Marcus said Vivien was real. She stays real. Avery was quiet for a few steps.
She was lucky to have you. I was lucky to have her. Both can be true at the same time. Yeah. Zoe stopped to examine something on the path.
Both are true. They walked for a while without talking. The comfortable silence, the kind that didn't need filling. Then Avery said quietly. My ex used to say my name like a correction.
Marcus turned his head. When he'd say Avery in a certain tone, it meant I'd done something wrong. Just my name. That was the signal. She said it without self-pity.
Just the clean statement of a fact that had taken time to become just a fact. I didn't realize how much of myself I'd organized around that signal until I left and my name was just my name again. What does it sound like now? Marcus asked. What does what sound like?
Your name. When someone says it, right? She looked at him. He realized what he'd said. He looked back at the path.
Avery didn't say anything for five steps. Then different than I remembered. Better. He did not look at her. He did not trust himself to look at her ahead of them.
Zoe had found the chess players and was watching them with the focused attention of someone encountering a new system. Zoey Marcus called, "Don't hover. I'm observing. " Zoe called back without turning around. One of the older men at the chess table looked up, looked at Zoey, and said, "You play? " "No," Zoe said. "But I want to learn the patterns. " The man smiled at that.
Marcus heard him say something to Zoe about patterns and pieces and Zoe asking two questions in quick succession and he and Avery stopped and watched and it was just ordinary just a Saturday a man and a woman standing on a path watching a child talk to a stranger about chess patterns and nothing was required and nothing was being decided and they were just there. Avery's arm touched his just the sleeve of her jacket against the sleeve of his jacket. The path was narrow. It was an accidental contact probably and neither of them moved. It lasted 4 seconds.
Then Zoe called, "Dad," he says. The night is the hardest piece because it thinks differently from everything else. And Mark stepped forward to engage the conversation, but he felt those 4 seconds for the rest of the afternoon. Tyke breeze. 49:30 Saturday night was when the wall cracked.
Not collapsed, not broken through, just a crack, the kind that had been there, invisible, and then wasn't invisible anymore. Zoe had gone to bed at 8:30, unusually without protest, which Marcus registered as suspicious, but accepted. He and Avery were in the living room again. Work and laptop, the familiar configuration of the last two evenings, except that Avery was not working. She was looking at her screen without seeing it.
Marcus watched her not working for a minute. What happened? He said. She looked up. Nothing happened.