Souvenirs of Starling Falls

“Not to brag,” I teased.

“I’m not bragging,” he said, giving me a cute, sheepish look. “It’s just having self-awareness. That’s all.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said.

“So, I’ve got the time and space now to get serious, and I need you to help me keep from being distracted.”

“Okay,” I said. “You’re in charge of your own writing schedule. I just thought settling in was such a distraction in itself that we ought to, you know, succumb to it for a couple of weeks. Get our Starling Falls fix. All of that. But if you’re ready to get serious about your book, I respect that.”

The thought of the $120,000 we had remaining in our savings account, all of it inherited from Tom’s grandmother, sprang to mind. The money he’d inherited, now much of it invested into this house, had seemed like a hundred million dollars. Like more money than we’d ever know what to do with. Now I wondered whether it was enough. Though we had no mortgage, we also had no jobs. And so many home repairs ahead of us. I sipped my coffee, silent.

“We need some groceries,” said Tom.

“I can get them today. I’ve been wanting to check out that cute little grocery store. The one with its very own grocer.” I waited for some kind of response but got nothing. I nudged Tom with my toe. “Do you remember what happened last night?”

“Yeah. Vaguely.”

“Just vaguely?” I asked.

“I was half asleep.”

“I was totally asleep, until it woke me up!”

“I can barely remember it,” he said, shrugging. He began unpacking a box of canned goods.

“It’s not imprinted in your mind, traumatizing you?” I asked.

Tom set down his cup of coffee and the can of veggie chili he was holding and turned to me, his face contorted in annoyance. “You mean to tell me that some married adults having sex in their ow

n home has traumatized you? Really? What do you have against them? They put us up in their house and made us breakfast. I’m not sure what your problem is with them.”

I took a step back from him, stunned by his dismissal of my feelings and his lack of humor. So much for the bright new day I was ready to have. “What happened to that guy I married who’s always on my side?” I asked. “Why are you sticking up for them so much?”

“Think about it, Courtney. They baked us a homemade pie. They let us sleep in a comfortable bed! They made us breakfast! And they hardly know us. Isn’t that the kind of behavior we were hoping to find in a small town like this? Who cares if they had sex?”

“For one thing, I didn’t want to stay there. I wanted to spend our first night in our new home alone with you. I’m sure you could tell, but you didn’t care how I felt. And, as for the sex thing, it wasn’t like they were just having normal sex. They opened our door first.”

“Like you always do, you’re overthinking this.”

“Whatever. Forget it.” I went over to a different packing box and started pulling out cake mixes and noodles and jars of peanuts. It took everything I had to not start crying.

“When you’re done with that, flatten the box. Don’t just leave it there empty,” said Tom.

I nodded, my back to him. “What’s with the rugs hanging all over the porch?” I asked, since the sight of them had irritated me and I no longer felt like holding back.

“I thought I’d air them out. Freshen them up while we have the chance.”

He meant while our dogs were away in Spokane at his parents’ house. They would be there for three more days until his mom and dad brought them down to us. Muffinseed and Hopscotch were the dogs’ names. The story was that they were rescued, and these were the silly names they’d come with. The second half of that story was, of course, a lie created by Tom. I’d given them their adorable names.

“Do you have a problem with them being out there?” he asked.

“They look a little trashy, hanging all over the railings like that.”

“I’ll bring them in later. If you can’t wait for me to do it, do it yourself. I’m going to try to get the washing machine hooked up.”

“How long is that going to take?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”