Page 69 of Forked (Frenched 2)
“Any of it. All of it.”
I closed my eyes briefly, let the question ruminate. To my surprise, I wasn’t. “No. You know what? I’m not angry anymore. And I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just sad and confused.”
He sighed heavily as he opened the door. “I think I liked it better when you were angry with me.”
#
Creak.
My eyes flew open as the unmistakable sound of the old springs beneath me groaned under added weight.
“Shhhh.” Nick’s scent filled my head as his warm body slid into the full-size bed behind me.
“Nick, what are you doing?” I whispered as he curled his body around mine.
“I love you,” he whispered back. “And I’m not giving up this time. Now go back to sleep.” He kissed the back of my head and tucked an arm around my stomach. “Night.”
I swallowed hard.
See? He lies, said common sense. He promised not to touch you. He said he’d let things cool off. He doesn’t know how to play by the rules. He’d be a terrible husband and father.
But his body was warm and cozy, his breathing deep and steady, lulling me back to sleep already.
I’d kick him out in the morning.
#
As it turned out, I didn’t get the chance to boot Nick out of my bed, because he was up before me again. I sat up and stretched, breathing in the smell of fresh coffee and---oh God, that scent! Was it…I sniffed the air like a bloodhound…Noni’s cinnamon buns?
I jumped out of bed and dressed in a navy blue romper, brushed my hair with a few frantic strokes and headed downstairs, recalling the breakfast Nick and Noni always made when we were here in the past. Huge, doughy rolls, sticky sweet with cinnamon and sugar and dripping with icing. I might have to go on another run today, but I was having one of those buns.
The aroma grew stronger at the bottom of the steps and I nearly floated into the kitchen, where Nick sat at the counter with a cup of coffee and Noni putzed around, cleaning up.
“Good morning,” she sang. “Did the noise wake you? I dropped a metal pan, and the whole house shook. My hands are a little unsteady these days.”
“Nope. It was the smell.” I inhaled, my knees twitching in excitement. “I have dreamed of this smell many times.”
“Rolls are in the oven,” Nick said. “Come sit. I went up to the attic this morning. Look what I found.” He gestured to the counter in front of him, where an old black photo album rested. Photographs, it said on the front cover in curly script. The leather edges were soft and frayed, and the entire thing was coming apart at the binding, time doing its best to overpower the graying white ribbon holding the pages together.
I sat next to him and pulled it between us. “Is this the album you mentioned yesterday, Noni?”
“It is.” She set a cup of coffee in front of me.
Nick opened the cover. Black and white photographs were fixed to black paper pages with tiny picture corners. Wedding photos, pictures of families, religious portraits of children. We turned the pages slowly, and sometimes we laughed at a particularly dour or mischievous expression on a child, but mostly we were reverently silent, going through more than a century of his family’s history.
The first photos looked like maybe they’d been taken in the early twentieth century, but as time went on, the pages revealed less formal poses and more smiling faces. All the Lupo men had the same full mouth and strong brow, the dark hair and eyes. Nick resembled them, although he must have gotten his leanness and height from his mother’s side. Finally we came to the wedding picture of his great-grandparents, which we studied in silence for a moment.
“They’re in love, you can just tell,” I said.
“They must have been. They had eight kids.”
“You don’t have to be in love to have eight kids,” I reminded him. “Or even one kid.” Without thinking about it, my hand went to my stomach, and I glanced down at it.
Nick cleared his throat. “We found something interesting in the back. Look at this.” From the back of the album he pulled a piece of material and spread it out in front of me. It was once white cotton but had yellowed with age. “It’s a handkerchief,” Nick said. “And look.”
On the handkerchief, scrawled in what appeared to be red lipstick, were three words.
I love you.
