Page 48 of This Life and All the Rest
Claire can choke on a dick for all I care.
There’sno change with Dad.
I was hoping to talk to a doctor while I was there, but I didn’t get a chance to see one. I just read him a few chapters of the book and then left him with a hand squeeze and a kiss on the forehead.
After my visit, I head back to Macon’s to get some painting done. I want to poke around his studio so badly. I want to snoop, but I don’t.
Instead, I’m taken aback when I notice that Macon’s drawing table has been cleaned up. The sketchbooks and pencils have been moved to a shelf, and in their place are two empty mason jars.
He must have done this last night, fixed me up a workstation, and it catapults me back to our afternoons in the high school art room. He’d lay out my paints and fill my jars, never once taking credit for it.
I half expect to see a sticky note on the table, but there isn’t one.
I feel my heart warming, and then I push it back.
I remind myself that it’s almost July. I close my eyes and allow myself a single memory. One of me chopping off my braid after learning the truth. Then I open my eyes and go about my business.
I figure out how to stream my phone playlist through his speakers, arrange my paints and brushes the way I like them, and I lose myself in the process.
The lighting in this studio is fucking insane, and I don’t stop painting until the sun starts to dip low in the sky and I realize I need to eat something.
After cleaning up, I make my way out into the apartment and about scream when I run into Macon.
“I thought I was here alone,” I say quickly. I splay one hand over my chest and try to catch my breath. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” Macon says slyly. “Me and Evie brought you some dinner, but your music was going, and I didn’t want to disturb you. Mom called about an hour ago. There’s no change with Trent, but she’s going to sleep at the hospital, so we’ve got the squirt for the night.”
“Oh.”
I nod and look toward Evelyn, who is playing on the floor in Macon’s small dining area between the living room and kitchen.
“Where does she sleep when she stays here?”
“I’ve got a little portable crib thing,” he tells me. “I set it up in my room, but I’ll keep her out here with me tonight.”
He has a crib for her.
The information affects me in a way I wish it wouldn’t.
The silence is weird, and when Macon realizes I’m not going to say anything, he moves to the fridge and pulls out some to-go containers.
“I ordered some food from The Outpost before I came home,” he tells me, emptying the to-go containers onto plates. “It’s taco night, and they have fucking amazing options, so I just got you a bunch to try.”
He unpacks an assortment of beef, shrimp, chicken, and black bean tacos and pops each plate in the microwave. Then he opens a paper bag of chips and another container full of guacamole. He sets it all out on the kitchen island in front of me before picking up Evie and buckling her into a little travel highchair I didn’t notice before.
It’s sodomestic. So stable and mature.
So different yet so perfectly aligned with the Macon I once knew.
I saw the good in Macon back then—I might have been one of the few who did—but the good was always buried beneath attitude and drugs and self-loathing. I never thought I’d get to see it laid out so blatantly on his surface.
It surprises me and renders me speechless. Goosebumps raise on my forearms, and I have the weirdest desire to cry.
“What?” Macon says, shaking me from my thoughts.
I hadn’t realized how long I’d been quiet. I look from the dinner spread to him.
“What?” I repeat.
