Page 63 of Fox

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We sway in the grass.

“Fox,” Lucy murmurs, her head on my shoulder.

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“I need to tell you something.”

My pulse accelerates.

Here it is. Here she comes.

But then the song changes and one of Milo’s kids cannons into us from the left, pursued by two others, and the moment breaks, and Lucy laughs—surprised, delighted, the full laugh, the one that I know is joy—and I catch her before the impact reachestheribs and the kid bounces off apologetically and runs on.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” She is still laughing, and her hand is on my chest, where she steadied herself, and she looks up at me.

Tell me. Right here. I’m not going anywhere.

Tell me, and let me tell you back, and let us be done with the performance and start the real.

She sighs. “Later.”

I swallow. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I keep my arm around her.

She leans her weight into me.

So, I hold her, in her parents’ backyard, in the gold light, with the smell of cumin and charcoal and the approaching evening.

And I think: I’ve got you.

I’ve got you this time.

And I’m not letting go.

23

ANNIVERSARY

LUCY

Our anniversary is in a week.

It’s been nearly two years since we said our vows in front of a judge in a courthouse, which I thought was one thing, and it turned out to be another, and now I cannot let this day pass without telling him the truth.

It is time.

I know it the way I know most things—before I can explain how, fully formed, arriving in the night and still there in the morning.

I have been carrying this lie for weeks now. It served its purpose, and I am not sorry I did it, but now….

Lies have a natural lifespan; this one has reached its end, and carrying it any further isn’t strategy—it’s dishonesty. A lie I’m telling a man I’m not sure I can leave.

Which is the other thing!

The thing I have been not saying—louder than everything else.

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