Chapter 49

The wall happened gradually.

The way most things in the apartment happen — without announcement, without a plan, just the natural accumulation of a life being lived and the things it leaves behind. It started with the Polaroid from Cora’s first party — the one that already existed, that Alysa had on her corkboard at the old apartment, the two of you laughing at something, not looking at the camera — and then a ticket stub from a film you saw together in October, and then another Polaroid, and then a ribbon from a bouquet, and then a napkin from the restaurant in Paris with the name of it printed at the top because you took it without thinking and she saw you take it and said nothing and smiled.

And then more.

And more.

Until the wall beside the bookshelf — not planned for this, just the wall that was there — became the place where your life together lives in physical form. Polaroids and printed photographs and ticket stubs and a single pink lace from a pair you retired and couldn’t quite throw away and a small magnet from Paris shaped like the Eiffel Tower and pins and ribbons and a pressed flower from somewhere you’ve both half forgotten and all of it together making something that is so entirely the two of you that visitors always stop in front of it before they’ve taken their coats off.

It’s a Sunday afternoon.

The particular quality of a Sunday that has nowhere to be — grey outside the windows, warm inside, the kind of day that gives itself to small domestic things without complaint. She’s on the sofa with her manga. You’re at the wall.

You’ve been at the wall for twenty minutes.

Not in a purposeful way — just the way you sometimes find yourself there, looking at it, reorganising slightly, making room for things that have accumulated on the kitchen counter waiting to be added. Today it’s a Polaroid from Jade’s end of summer party — the two of you on the table, mid-dance, your white skirt and her black one and both of your faces completely lit up — and a ticket stub from a Laufey concert you went to last month and a small pressed maple leaf from the park where you walked in October when the trees were doing the thing.

You add the leaf first.

Then the concert ticket.

Then the Polaroid, finding just the right spot for it, slightly overlapping the edge of the Paris napkin because that feels right, because Paris led to the table and the table was its own kind of Paris.

You step back.

Look at it.

At all of it together — the months and the moments and the small physical evidence of a life that has been building itself quietly and completely and with great love.

“Do you want to have kids one day?”

You say it softly.

Not looking at her — still looking at the wall, at the Polaroids, at the two of you in various configurations of happy across various moments that have already become the past and are now kept here, on this wall, permanent.

There is a quality to your voice that is soft and also something else. Something that sits just underneath the soft. Not sad exactly — more like tender. More like the particular feeling of wanting something so much that saying it out loud makes it slightly vulnerable.

She hears it.

You know she hears it because the sound of the manga page turning stops.

“I would love at least one,” you say quietly. Still to the wall. “I think about it sometimes.”

A pause.

The Sunday going on around you.

The plant on the windowsill. Gerald the bench in the hallway. The fairy lights on the bookshelf even in the afternoon because some things are always on.

She sets the manga down.

You hear it.

“Yes,” she says.

Simply and completely.

You turn to look at her.

She’s on the sofa but she’s not reading anymore — she’s looking at the middle distance with an expression that is soft and slightly far away, the particular quality of someone who is seeing something that doesn’t exist yet and finding it beautiful.

“I think about it too,” she says quietly. “A lot actually.”

You lean against the wall beside the memory wall and look at her.

“What do you think about?” you ask softly.

She’s quiet for a moment.

Finding it.

“Someone small,” she says. “Who laughs a lot. I think they’d laugh a lot.” A pause. “I think about teaching them to skate. Not pushing — just — taking them to a rink one day and putting tiny skates on them and holding their hands and seeing if they like it.” She smiles slightly at whatever she’s seeing. “I think about the three of us on a Saturday morning being completely ordinary. Just — cereal and cartoons and someone small between us on the sofa.” Another pause. “I think about how much Massimo would cry the first time he held them.”

You laugh — soft and warm and slightly undone.

“He would absolutely cry,” you say.

“Immediately,” she says. “Before they’d even done anything.”

You look at the memory wall.

At the Polaroid of the two of you on the table.

At the Paris napkin.

At the single pink lace.

You think about cereal and cartoons and someone small between you on the sofa, and Massimo crying, and tiny skates, and a little laugh that belongs to both of you somehow.

You want it so much it sits in your chest like something physical.

“Okay,” you say.

She looks at you.

“Wait.” You push off the wall slightly. “How about a cat first?” Alysa says.

You stare at her.

“As a compromise,” Alysa says seriously. “We’re not ready for a small human yet but I think we’re ready for a small cat. As practice.”

You continue staring.

“A starter child,” she says.

“A starter—”

“A trial run. Low stakes. Significantly less paperwork.”

You look at her for a long moment.

At her completely serious expression.

At the wall behind you — all the evidence of everything you’ve already built — and at her face, which you have been looking at across rinks and benches and café tables and competition stands and hotel rooms in Paris and this sofa on this Sunday afternoon.

“A cat,” you say.

“A cat,” she confirms.

“As a starter child.”

“Exactly.”

She picks the manga back up.

“Okay,” you say.

You turn back to the wall.

Start straightening the Polaroid slightly.

“What kind?” you ask, after a moment.

“Of cat?”

“Mm.”

She thinks about it.

“Something small,” she says. “That laughs a lot.”

You look at her over your shoulder.

She looks up from the manga.

“Cats don’t laugh,” you say.

“Ours will,” she says.

She holds your gaze for a moment.

And then you smile — slow and warm and all the way to your eyes — and look back at the wall and she looks back down at her manga and the Sunday afternoon goes on around you soft and grey and entirely, completely enough.

Somewhere in the sock drawer a ring waits.

Patient.

Knowing it won’t have to wait much longer.