I woke up the day after I arrived here because Chloe, crosswise on the bed, had put her foot in my mouth. Daylight filtered through beakers and vases on the windowsills. I sat up.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood, you\u2019re awake,\u201d said Matt.Turning to take in his round head, his old familiar blinking eyes, I felt a gush of relief. \u201cMatt!\u201d I crossed quickly to the kitchen and grabbed onto him. \u201cIt\u2019s so good to see you!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou, too.\u201d He hugged gently. \u201cKind of a surprise, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it is. I\u2019m sorry to parachute in on you like this. I just\u2026 We\u2019re having kind of a disaster at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Sibyl okay?”<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not Mom. I mean, she\u2019s fine, as far as I know. She\u2019s in Sierra Leone. It\u2019s Charlie, Charlie and me.\u201d And suddenly, even with Penny sitting there at the kitchen table in front of a bowl of Grapenuts, my troubles spewed like lava. I gave them the whole story \u2013 how I found the secret correspondence, my suspicions, Charlie\u2019s denial, the confrontation at Zulya\u2019s place, how I\u2019d fled across the country only to find my mother in Sierra Leone. I looked away from their eyes as I spoke, but kept talking without waiting to hear their responses. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t stay there, in our apartment, knowing that Charlie would come home and knowing that I couldn\u2019t trust anything he said anymore, that this person who used to be my husband was a total stranger to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a moment, they both just stared at me, and I knew I\u2019d gone too far. Who was I to Matt after all, but someone he\u2019d known in childhood? He opened his mouth and closed it again. \u201cWell, I\u2019m\u2026\u201d He turned to Penny.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo happy you did,\u201d Penny finished. She covered my fist in her warm manly hand, and I felt a gush of relief. \u201cIt sounds absolutely horrible, what you\u2019re going through. And we\u2019re glad you came to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Matt agreed. \u201cYou\u2019re welcome here. As long as you like.\u201d He smiled at Penny and she back at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks. So much.\u201d Standing before them, I shivered as if I\u2019d thrown off all my clothes.<\/p>\n
Penny moved to cover me with hospitality. \u201cWell how about some breakfast?\u201d She began opening cupboards and setting on the counter boxes of cereal, bread, jam. \u201cWhat would the kids like? I almost went to the store, but I realized I didn\u2019t know what you eat.\u201d She set a grapefruit on the counter, along with an orange and a basket of strawberries. \u201cNo butter, I\u2019m afraid. Juice? Coffee? Tea?\u201d She set out a bag of French roast in front of me as if I could eat it raw.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love a cup,\u201d I said. She dished me a bowl of strawberries, set the coffeemaker going and turned the topic to her work. \u201cAlgae,\u201d she said sitting down opposite me at the little table in their eat-in kitchen, \u201cspecifically cytokinesis in algae. When I say that, it makes most people\u2019s eyes glaze over. But it\u2019s absolutely fascinating. Did you know that algae is becoming one of the world\u2019s most important food sources? You\u2019ve probably had some in the last twenty-four hours and didn\u2019t even know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She filled the space between us with warm bubbles for a quarter of an hour while Matt sat by until suddenly she looked at her watch and jumped up. \u201cI\u2019m going to be late!\u201d She turned her eyes on Matt. \u201cI trust you can entertain our guest until I get back?\u201d He nodded, she pecked him on the cheek and then was gone, letting silence flood into the townhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat time do you have to be at work?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever,\u201d he said. \u201cI was there until one a.m. last night, so I thought I just might take the day off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot on my account, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged. \u201cI could use a rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our eyes met for a moment, then I looked away, feeling a surge of gratitude I couldn’t express. I pulled my Blackberry from my purse. \u201cYou know, I really should check in for messages.\u201d<\/p>\n
He directed me to the upstairs office, a room furnished with computers, peripherals, file cabinets and an Ikea desk covered with pungent Petri dishes. There were six messages on my phone. As I suspected, the first was from Charlie. “Adrienne,” he had said at 8:30 p.m., while my plane was somewhere over the Rockies, “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know what I did hurt you.\u201d A huskiness roughened his baritone. \u201cWhat I want to tell you, what I need to tell you, is that I never wanted to do it. I don’t know why I did. I was, somehow, trying to get your attention I guess. Trying to make you see me again. It was the wrong way of doing it. But we can work this out.” Hearing that, the tremor in his voice, I weakened. I wondered where he\u2019d be right then, how I could reach him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I gave them the whole story \u2013 how I found the secret correspondence, my suspicions, Charlie\u2019s denial, the confrontation at Zulya\u2019s place, how I\u2019d fled across the country only to find my mother in Sierra Leone. I looked away from their eyes as I spoke, but kept talking without waiting to hear their responses. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[47,42,41,63,53,22],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrienne","tag-children-of-polyamory","tag-digital-fiction","tag-interactive-novel","tag-online-fiction","tag-poly","tag-polyamory-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1039,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions\/1039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}