Behind Kit is the kitchen window. I can see cars drive past, their lights illuminating him each time they pass, and I realize that at some point during our dish duty, it became night. We never bothered to turn on the lights, and we make no move to now, though we probably should.

“I think it’s hard for you to fall in love because you like control, and you can’t control what another person does or feels, so you keep all your cards.”

I’d gasp, except he can’t possibly be right. Can he? Also, gasping is for damsels, and I’m a gangster.

“Word,” I say. “Maybe, if I had something more to go on other than love…”

“Like what?” Kit asks. “A dream?”

I don’t gasp, but I hear my intake of breath. The refrigerator hums, ice drops into the tray in the freezer, a motorcycle drives by. I hold out the glass for another shot. There’s the clink of the bottle on the glass rim as he pours, never taking his eyes off mine.

“Have you ever had a dream like that?” I ask, licking the tequila from my lips. “One that was so real you couldn’t let it go?” Something passes across Kit’s eyes.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. I’m about to ask the inevitable What about? when Della’s voice calls from the bedroom. It’s rare that she will ever go to bed without Kit tucked in safely beside her. Most nights he complains about not being tired.

“Couples’ bedtime,” I grin.

“I hate you,” he grimaces. “Are you going to watch that stupid show tonight?”

“That stupid show you keep sneaking out of your bedroom to watch with me? Yes.”

He narrows his eyes and grins.

“You better go, you’ve been summoned.”

He takes one last shot before he leaves the kitchen. When he’s in the doorway, he turns around.

“I want her to be like you.”

“What?” I’m distracted, tidying up the last of the kitchen. I glance at him over my shoulder.

“My daughter,” he says. “I want her to be like you.”

I feel many things at once, but at forefront is hurt. I can still see Brandi in my mind, and yet I wouldn’t do a thing to change Annie’s existence.

“Then you should have had her with me,” I say.

Kit blinks hard, once, twice, then he’s gone.

I store the bottle of tequila, and rinse the glass in the sink, before putting it away in the cabinet to erase evidence of our night.

Kit graduates with his master’s. He doesn’t tell me, and the only reason I find out is because his parents send a card, which I find in the trash under an egg carton. Congratulations, Son!

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him, holding up the card. The Congratulations is smeared and bubbled from egg yolk. I hear the accusation in my voice, and I flinch. I sound like a nagging wife. `

He glances at me from where he stirs something in a pot, and grins.

“With everything that’s going on, I just didn’t think about it.”

“That’s bullshit,” I tell him. “It’s a big deal.”

He shrugs. “It kind of pales in comparison.”

“No,” I say. “It’s something to celebrate and be happy about in the midst of all the bad.”

“Hush, lonely heart. Pass me the paprika.”

He hasn’t called me that in a very long time. I get tingles all over.

“I didn’t have wrapping paper, I’m sorry.” I push a package across the counter. He stops stirring to look at it, then glances up at me.

“Did you wrap that in a diaper?”

I nod. Kit laughs, drying his hands on a dishtowel. He leans against the stove and holds the diaper-wrapped present in his hands, looking it over.

“You didn’t even need tape this way,” he says.

“It’s really quite genius,” I tell him. He keeps his eyes on me as he lifts the diaper tabs, smirking until my stomach flips. I know that grin. Nights wandering around Port Townsend, a bottle of wine in his hand. His nose was always red from the cold … smirking, smirking. Tonight I am in the kitchen with the Kit of Port Townsend. Lately, it’s been Kit the dad, Kit the worried fiancé. Tonight, he feels like my Kit. And I’ve missed him so much.

He opens the diaper wrapping and inside is three things: a blue crayon, a wine cork, and a sketchbook. When he looks at me it’s not with confusion. His jaw works as he touches each one and then sets the crayon and cork down to open the sketchbook. I watch, my heart racing.

“You did these?”

“Yeah,” I say softly. “Remember the—”

“Book I bought you. Yeah, I do,” he says. He nods slowly, and then some more like he forgets he’s doing it.

“You made me a coloring book.” His voice is raspy. I look away.

The pictures are a story, sketched in ink. I labored over each one for months. It was the story of the dream, and it hurt to make it.

“Helena…”

“I just want you to know that aside from any degree you get, or what job you get, or any accomplishment you make in life, you changed mine. You have that thing about you that changes other people.”

I don’t stay to hear what he says.

When Annie is five months old, Della takes her first steps. It’s a big deal in her recovery, those jittery five steps. While her mother totters across the hardwood, Annie watches from her blanket on the floor. She rolled over for the first time that very morning. Kit, Della, and I all happened to be in the room, and our reaction was so loud and spontaneous that Annie burst into frightened tears. Now, daughter and best friend watch from the corner of the room as Della’s therapist urges her forward. At first, I think she’s going to fall over; her legs are so frail and thin they don’t look like they can hold up anything. But, she makes it across the room, her face glowing in triumph. Perhaps my imagination, but does she glance at me in victory? Her hair is just past her ears now, and she’s put on a little of the weight she lost. She looks so much better. I like to think that my presence here is helping her recovery—and in a way it is—but the truth is, she wants me gone. That’s why she’s working as hard as she is. I would happily go, except Kit got a job at marketing firm, and there is no one to take care of Annie during the day. Della has suggested I take my leave and get back to my own life, but Kit won’t have it. “Annie knows Helena,” he says. “I’m not going to have some stranger watching her.” He says it so firmly, neither of us argues. Later, when Della is giving Annie a bath, I corner Kit in the yard as he’s taking out the trash.