He could know, if Amber would tell him.
They had to get better at that part—asking and telling. He had to get better about being home, being with her the way he had been the past few days, instead of letting his mind wander off to his work or his worries.
He’d let himself forget his wife, left her behind and alone and told himself she’d be fine. But she wasn’t fine—not without him. They needed each other.
He’d screwed up, but now he had another chance. He had to remember what was important, because when he lost sight of Amber, he always ended up in the dark.
She came out of the bathroom in a towel with her hair damp and her glasses on. Faintly, he could hear the whining sound her contact lens case made. Hydrogen peroxide bubbles and escaping air. In the morning, there’d be a little puddle underneath it, and she’d wipe it up after she put the contacts back in her eyes and the case in the drawer.
She drew on her underwear, soft flannel pajama pants, heavy socks, and an old T-shirt. He flipped back the covers on her side of the bed. She crawled in next to him and turned her back so she could apply lip balm and rub lotion into her hands.
Leaving her glasses on the table, she scooted down the bed, rolling close to him to put her head in the nook between his shoulder and chest. Her arm over his torso.
She sighed, melting against his side, and he pushed up her shirt at the small of her back with his fingertips so he could brush them over her skin.
Too beautiful to live without.
And it was. She was.
“Where do you see us in ten years?” he asked.
Amber nuzzled her head against his chest, pushing deeper into the nook where she liked to rest.
“Right here,” she said.
“In this house?”
“In this bed.”
He’d built the bed, too. The plan had been to order one, but Amber had a very specific idea of what she wanted, and it turned out that what she wanted—Queen-size, but kind of low to the ground so the kids can climb in, and no shelves or anything in the headboard, because who wants to dust that? Not me. And I don’t care what color it is, but it has to be basically indestructible. And it would be nice if it matched the trim. Can you buy me one like that?
He’d bought his carpenter buddy a case of beer, paid for the lumber, and they’d spent a couple weekends in his garage making the exact bed Amber wanted. A bed that would last forever.
But it came apart. They could take it with them.
“What if we had to sell the house?”
It surprised him how easily the question emerged, considering how impossible it had seemed just a few days ago.
“We’d sell the house,” she said.
“You wouldn’t care?”
“We’d both care. It’s a beautiful house. You made it, and it’s amazing.” She stroked his chest. Patted him once, gently. “But if we had to sell it, we’d sell it. And we’d still have the bed.”
“It’s a good bed.”
>
She tightened her arm around him. “Very good. I have a lot of excellent memories that take place in this bed.”
“You’re thinking of that time with the wet towel, aren’t you?”
“What? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“When the kids got into that mud fight, and we had to give them all, like, six baths? And then we were gonna go to bed, but we kept finding flakes of mud in the sheets, so we took a shower …”
She rose a few inches, looking at him with dawning understanding. “And you smacked me. With a wet towel. I could have killed you.”