Page 23 of Between Our Hearts

He’d rinsed his face and set down and armed Lottie before Sadie could register that she hadn’t disappointed him. In fact, a playful, evil gleam settled in his eyes as he covered his own palms. Lottie smeared her exposed calves and shins with cream, pulling a deep laugh from Sadie’s belly. When she looked up to find her husband’s lit eyes already focused on her face, her breath sat trapped in her chest.

“I always thought you’d look lovely with a beard.” His hand cupped one cheek and then the other so delicately she wanted to lean into his palm despite the shaving cream.

“More!” Lottie bounced and then slipped. As her wet little bottom hit the river rock floor of their shower, she burst into tears.

“Okay, no more shaving cream.” Clark swooped her up and started rinsing them both off. “Love, do you want to shower?” When he glanced at her, it felt like the past year hadn’t happened. The tone, the inflection, the ease at which the sentence tumbled off his tongue. It was as if all that pain had never occurred.

But then she remembered it had. She remembered loss after loss and pulled her gaze away. “No, I’ll just wipe it off with a towel.”

Sadie left the bathroom to put her shaving cream-covered towel in the laundry room sink and let herself continue down the stairs. She didn’t understand what she was doing until her bare feet crossed the dewy evening grass to the playhouse. Sunset light streamed through the compact glass windows Clark had installed, though most of them were left open all the time. He’d built little shelves and tucked a plastic play kitchen into a corner. Sadie didn’t recognize the handmade kid’s wooden table and chair set placed near it.

She tugged the hair tie from her ponytail and backed up until she slid down the chalkboard wall. Later she’d explain away the chalk dust on the back of her T-shirt, but now she needed to remember to breathe. Her arms wrapped around her knees as she pulled the humid air into her lungs.

“You get five minutes. Five minutes, then you need to do bedtime tonight. She’s had a hard day,” Sadie whispered.

She’d been doing this a lot over the last several months. Sometimes, she’d get up, put on scrubs as if she was going to surgery, and then sit on top of a picnic table at a park at sunrise, just like this. Other times, she’d find refuge in various single-use bathrooms on different floors of the hospital. Every time curled into a ball, knowing that she needed to process the heartache pitted deep in her body, but also aware she didn’t know how.

When her heart rate slowed, she rose from her position, pulled her hair up, and returned to the house. Clark was already singing, so she silently slid into Lottie’s bedroom. After hearing their daughter’s breathy slumber, they moved through the rest of the things that needed to be done—cleaning up and feeding themselves something.

The sidelong glances that came her way became too much after a while, so she sat herself at her computer, catching up on the charting from the mass casualty highway accident that had kept her at the hospital until nearly daylight. As she usually did when she worked, she lost track of time. Only the sound of the TV turning off and then Clark climbing the stairs alerted her to the fact that it was nearly ten.

She waited another five minutes, shuffling around the clutter on her desk, before heading upstairs to get ready for bed. When she walked out of the bathroom, Clark was awake instead of asleep with the light off, like normal. His eyes were on the ceiling, one hand over his heart, the other behind his head. Her bedside sconce was on, though his was off.

After tucking herself under the covers, she reached to turn off her light.

“Thank you.” His whispered words were barely audible.

Abandoning the sconce, she turned in bed to face her husband. He didn’t move from his position, his strong jaw evident as it tilted skyward. Part of her wanted to clarify what he was thanking her for, but then this serene look washed over his face as his eyelashes rested on his cheek. Breath after even breath raised and lowered his bare chest.

Sadie knew he wasn’t asleep, but Clark seemed more relaxed that she’d seen him in months. She almost didn’t want to move for fear she’d disturb him. In the end, she reached in slow degrees until her fingertips touched the metal, turning the light off. Instead of settling into her normal position, she stacked her hands under her pillow and pulled her top leg toward the center of the bed.

“Goodnight,” she murmured almost silently in case he was already sleeping.

As the Benadryl she’d taken to help her readjust to normal sleep hours pulled at her last threads of consciousness, she thought she heard “Goodnight, love” whispered in return.

?Chapter 12?

Lottie scribbled half-on/half-off the yellow construction paper he’d set on her kid-sized wooden table behind the rectangular folding table which showcased his pieces at the Northwood Farmer’s Market. Though it’d been a week since her dental procedure, a box of apple juice sat just beyond her elbow. Since she was behaving nicely this morning and allowing him to talk to customers as they meandered by, Clark felt she deserved it.

He moved around the front of the display table to replace the three-foot by eighteen-inch panel he’d just sold with another piece. His larger pieces were propped between the asphalt and the top edge of the table, and he’d built a few display blocks for the smaller twelve-by-twelve pieces. Last week, a customer had asked for a business card, and he’d been embarrassed to say he didn’t have one. This week, a handmade wooden holder held slim pieces of card stock touting “Clark Benson, Woodsmith” followed by his email.

“How’s business?” Thatcher’s wide frame blocked the sunlight streaming between canopy tents.

“You know what? Not bad. Each weekend, I sell more than the one prior.” This was his fourth week, and Clark felt he’d finally gotten the flow of being on this side of the tent. “Hey, do you have a website?”

Robin had dropped by last week, sneaking Lottie an organic agave lollipop and mentioning that she did almost all of her business online through her website or various craft websites but liked the milieu of the farmer’s market. That was why she’d coordinated with the town’s leadership to start it in the first place.

Thatcher smoothed a hand over his thick beard. “I do, but I use it more to take orders for custom pieces and advertise what markets I’ll be at.”

“All right.” He nodded to himself, pushing some sweat from his brow. The air was already sticky and warm, even though it was only midmorning. “Maybe I’ll look into getting one this week.”

“They’re pretty easy now, with drag and drop builders.” A throaty laugh punched from his belly. “If I can do it, you’ll have no problem.”

This hobby, which at first had been something to distract his brain during the long evening hours alone, now seemed like a tangible thing that he could push into something more if he really wanted to. An effervescent sensation rolled over his muscles, leaving possibility shining in its wake.

“I’ve got to get back. Just wanted to say hi.” Thatcher waved and made his way back to his location mid-market.

Because Clark had started after the season had already begun, he was at the very end, but people still seemed to find him. Also, there were long stretches between customers where he could play with Lottie to keep her happy.

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