Page 27 of The Affair
“What?” I asked, suddenly panicked.
I have houseplants?
Where?
My eyes scanned the room, and sure enough, there were several scattered around—a spiky brownish thing near the front window, a tired succulent on the mantel, and even a larger bush that I’d just always assumed was fake in the dining room area.
“You didn’t even know they existed, did you?”
“My mom took care of those.” I felt like a total failure.How many things had she been quietly taking care of while I assumed I was running around like Superwoman for the last year?
“Look,” he said, his voice taking on a soothing quality, “give it a few weeks. Let things simmer down in your life, and if you still want Louisa—”
“Clementine.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what I was going to name her. Louisa is a horrible name for a cat.”
A slight smile played across his lips as he looked down at me. “Okay, Clementine it is then. If Clementine still tugs at your heart in a few weeks, or any of these other fur-balls do, contact them. But for now, water those plants.”
I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
Even though he was a little overbearing and pushy, he wasn’t wrong. If I couldn’t even keep a plant alive, much less notice its existence, I didn’t have any business adopting a cat right now.
It didn’t mean I wanted the little fur-ball any less though.
Plants were not nearly as exciting.
Or cute.
Closing the laptop, I noticed his eyes had already begun roaming around the room, checking out the pictures on the mantel and then moving on to the items on the coffee table.
“Hey, what’s this?” he asked, pointing to the large binder I’d left there days ago.
At this point, I’d already begun to get used to his rapid-fire questions and innate sense of curiosity to the point where I was starting to find it charming, so I went with it and answered, “My grandmother’s journal. Or one of them at least.”
“One of them? That thing is massive. Can I look at it?”
I nodded but then added, “As long as your hands are grease-free.”
He held them up to prove his cleanliness, and I gave him a smile and a nod of approval before he picked it up and set it in his lap. I immediately appreciated the way he took care in opening it, folding back the old black plastic as if it were precious leather instead of a flimsy thing you’d pick up at a dollar store.
“Check out that handwriting,” he said, bending down to examine it. “That cursive is so intense. There is some of it I can’t even make out.”
I leaned in, trying to catch a glimpse at what he was looking at. “She had beautiful handwriting.”
“They definitely don’t teach that anymore,” he remarked. “Did she organize it by date instead of year?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I never really understood why. I guess I could ask my mom if she knew, but she always went by date, so see, you can flip to any point, and you’ll find all March dates from every year she wrote in this journal.”
“That’s actually kind of genius. It allowed her to look back as she wrote every entry. She could scribble out her entry for March 2, 1992, and then read what she did on that day five years ago without having to flip back.”
“I think she also enjoyed comparing the weather patterns,” I said, pointing to the almost-religious way she’d cataloged the daily temperatures.
“Wow, that’s cold!” he exclaimed, pointing to a chilly March low.
“The Midwest.”
