It’s an early second honeymoon of sorts. You leave Cece with your mother and spend a week in a house by the ocean. The house is all wood floors and wood walls and feels more like cabin than a beach house, but you like how it smells musty, old, lived in.
Jim gets beautifully tan, his nose the only place that turns red, and the hair on his arms looks golden against his bronze skin. You jokingly call him Rudolph for a whole day, “Hey, Rudy, what flavor ice cream do you want?”
But then he gets you back in that house and his skin is warm and salty and it’s been over a year since you just made love every night with this much fervor. You ache and ache when he kisses you in the dim lamplight of a strange bedroom, with his face serious and his mouth relentless. You feel younger. You feel like you did those first heady weeks with him and it almost makes you cry a little. You hadn’t realized how you missed him.
There’s a thunderstorm one night that takes out the electricity and you’re sitting on the floor of the living room playing Scrabble by candlelight and drinking wine. He’s beating you but only because you don’t care about the game and you keep getting caught up in how the flame from the candle flickers across his face. And then you’re distracted thinking about how even now you’re surprised by the beauty of him, and the fact of him sitting there across from you. You say, ‘My husband,’ to yourself over and over while you look at him and something within you tightens and you crawl over to where he’s sitting cross legged and you kiss his face, catching him off guard as your mouth travels along his jaw. “Hey,” he says quietly taking hold of your wrists.
You kiss him on the mouth once and you feel him pressing back, but you stop and pull away. You fall back onto the rug, staring up into the darkness where the orange glow of the candles doesn’t reach. He joins you, his shoulder pressing against yours. You want to curl into him and just stay there forever. It’s really all you’ve ever wanted.
“Can I say something that might sound horrible?”
He turns on his side, props himself up on his elbow and looks down at you. “Sure.”
“I love Cece. Beyond anything I could ever imagine, I love that girl. She’s a miracle to me everyday. You know that.”
“Of course.”
“But I still kind of miss when it was just us, you and me, Jim and Pam.”
You meet his eyes and he’s looking at you with an expression you can’t really read and then he says, “It’s still Jim and Pam. Just with a little something extra.”
You turn over on your side and press your hands against his chest, trying to find his heart. “I know. I just miss being with you all the time, without interruption. I miss not being too tired to have sex. I miss being able to go out to dinner without having to find a babysitter. I miss getting drunk and stumbling home and having my way with you.”
Somewhere along the way, you started crying and now you look up at him and say simply, “I miss you.” And you know you can’t really explain it properly and that the next thing he’ll say is that he’s here always and you don’t have to miss him.
So you’re surprised when instead he leans forward and kisses you fiercely and pulls back to say, “I miss you too. I was afraid to say it, but I do. So much.”
Thunder rattles through the old house and he lifts up your shirt.
unfold is the author of 102 other stories.
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