Room for More

Our first night in the new house, Avery went out to get the last box from the car and knocked on the door when he came back.

“You have a key,” I called.

“My hands are full.”

I opened the door. He was holding a single work glove.

“What happened to the box?”

“I set it down.”

He walked past me and put the glove on the kitchen counter. It was the one I’d found on his windowsill back at the institute. He’d wrapped it in packing paper, carefully enough that it looked like something he’d been meaning to give me.

“You kept it,” I said.

“It was my first successful courting gift.”

“It was mine before you took it.”

“You still took it home.”

I tried to come up with an answer to that. After a moment, I picked up the glove and put it in the top drawer. Avery watched me do it with an expression of mild vindication he’d been getting very good at lately.

We brought in the last box together. There wasn’t much in it. A couple of books, some paper wrapped around two mismatched mugs, the saucer for the violet. I’d carried the plant on my lap while Avery drove. It had acquired four new flowers since our first attempt at repotting it, and I’d recently caught him looking up how to grow a second one from a leaf.

I took it down the hall to the empty room. Even with the sky overcast, it got more light than anywhere else in the house. I set the pot on the sill and ran my fingers along the window frame. No draft.

“Can the books go in here for now?” Avery asked.

He’d followed me with the box against his chest. His sleeves were shoved up to his elbows, like the first morning he’d borrowed my sweatshirt. It was his sweatshirt this time. I’d worn it twice already.

“Sure,” I said. “We can put up shelves this weekend.”

He stepped into the room and looked around for somewhere to set the box.

“And if we ever have kids,” I said, “this room gets the best light.”

Avery stopped walking.

I could hear a car pass on the wet street. Somewhere in the kitchen the old fridge clicked on. He was still holding the box. I wondered how long he would stand there with it if I didn’t go and take it from him.

“We?” he asked.

I carried the box the last few steps and set it against the wall.

“Yeah,” I said. “We.”

Avery looked around the room again. He gave the window an especially long look, like he’d be able to remember the light better if he saw it one more time. Then he held out a hand.

I walked over and put my chin on his shoulder. The first day at the institute, I’d imagined a man leaning half his weight against me as if he belonged there. I’d gotten his hair right and his eyes right. I hadn’t known then how nice it would feel to be the one doing the leaning.

Avery put his arms around me. The violet’s leaves touched the glass when the heater came on. In the living room, our rain-watching couch was still in two pieces, and neither of us had any idea where we’d packed the screws.

“You’re squeezing,” I said.

Avery started to loosen his arms. I caught one and pulled it back around me.

“I didn’t say stop.”