“She said things tonight and she has said things before. Tonight she said them in my home to my face with an audience present.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “You will. And more than once. But what you do about your marriage is your business, and I am not inserting myself into it. What I am telling you is that my house and what happens to it is my business, and I have handled it.”
He looked up at her.
“Do you still want me here?” he asked. “This weekend.”
She considered the question as seriously as it deserved.
“Yes,” she said. “But quietly. And alone. Megan can join us in the fall, after we’ve had some time. Right now I need this weekend to be what I came for.”
He nodded. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
“You always did,” she said. “It still has the yellow quilt.”
Something shifted in his face. The thinned-out look retreating slightly, the boy who had eaten peanut-butter sandwiches on the porch steps briefly visible underneath the adult who had let things go further than he should have.
“I remember the quilt,” he said.
Eleanor put the kettle on.