CHAPTER 96: Ordinary Tuesday

POV: Avalon Pierce

Nothing significant happened on Tuesday.

For the better part of a year significant things had happened constantly. Legal motions, board votes, federal arrests, warehouse floors and letters at the bottom of boxes. The significance had been so consistent it had become the texture of daily life.

Tuesday was just Tuesday.

He had woken up, made coffee properly this time because he’d been practicing and it was getting better, read through overnight emails, then called Margaret about a Nexus matter that required twenty minutes and nothing more and ate lunch at his desk.

Selene called at two.

“The community partner meeting went well,” she said. “Susan Park brought two colleagues and they spent forty minutes on the infrastructure fund specifically.”

“How did they respond to the name.”

“The Lorraine Pierce Infrastructure Fund? She pause. “Susan said it felt like it had been named by someone who understood what infrastructure actually was.”

“She’s right.”

“I know.” He heard her moving around. “I’m going to be late tonight,  Amara wants to go through the January timeline.”

“I’ll cook.”

A pause.

“You’ll cook?” she asked.

“I’ve been practicing.”

“I know you’ve been practicing. I’m just noting that you said it with confidence.”

“I have moderate confidence.”

“That’s higher than last week.”

“It is,” he agreed.

She laughed.

He stayed on the line one extra second just to have it.

Then hung up.

He left the office at five.

He walked home instead of taking a car. The October evening doing what October evenings did in San Francisco with its light and temperature that made the city look like it was trying its best.

He walked through neighborhoods he knew and ones he didn’t then stopped at a market for the things he needed for dinner.

A woman ahead of him in the line had a child on her hip who was entirely focused on a cracker and treating this focus as the most serious business in the world.

He watched them for a moment.

The child’s complete absorption and the woman’s unconscious adjustment of her hip to accommodate the weight. It was magical

He thought about Elena not with grief. Just with the awareness that had arrived since Dr. Adeyemi and hadn’t left. The awareness of what four minutes and seventeen seconds contained. What a life briefly present left in its wake even when the people it touched didn’t know they’d been touched.

The child finished the cracker and looked for another.

The woman produced one from somewhere with the casual competence of someone who had learned to carry things in advance.

He paid for his groceries and went home.

He cooked for an hour.

He burned the first onions and started again without frustration.

The second attempt was better.

By the time the door opened at seven thirty the apartment smelled like something that had been made with effort and mostly succeeded.

Selene came in and stopped in the hallway.

“You actually cooked,” she said.

“I said I would.”

“I know and I believed you.” She came in and set her bag down. “I just didn’t expect it to smell this good.”

“Moderate confidence,” he said.

“Higher than moderate,” she said. “That’s a good smell.”

She walked towards him and stood beside him looking at the pan.

He handed her a spoon.

She tasted it.

“Well?” he said.

“Don’t get smug,” she said.

“So it’s good.”

“It’s very good.” She handed back the spoon. “Don’t get smug.”

They ate at the table without discussing work.

After dinner, they sat on the couch with her in between her legs. She told him about Susan Park’s forty minutes on the infrastructure fund and something Maya had added to the visual identity that morning. 

He told her about the Nexus matter, the walk he’d taken through a neighborhood he hadn’t been in for years and the child.

She listened with her chin in her hand the way she did when she was fully present and not performing presence.

“You think about her more lately,” she said. “Elena.”

“Not more,” he said. “Differently.”

“How differently.”

He thought about it.

“Before she was absent,” he said. “Something missing, a shape defined by what wasn’t there.” He looked at his plate. “Now she’s more like a presence. Four minutes and seventeen seconds of actual presence that happened and can’t unhappen.” He paused. “That’s different to carry.”

Selene looked at him.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “It is.”

He stood up to do the dishes, she followed him and sat on the counter top watching him clean up.

He didn’t mind being watched. 

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Yes.”

“If we try,” she said. “When we try.” A pause. “Are you afraid?”

He knew what she meant.

The pregnancy they’d named but not rushed toward. The thing that existed in the future as both hope and terror.

“Yes,” he said.

“Me too.”

“But?”

She looked at her hands.

“But I’m more afraid of not trying,” she said. “Than of trying and it being hard.”

He looked at her on the counter.

“Same,” he said.

She looked at him.

“Not yet,” she said. “But soon.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

“Whenever we’re ready,” she replied.

He accepted the correction and turned back to the washing up.

The kitchen was warm around them with both nothing and everything significant.