Page 24

After the scare this evening, Enzo won’t leave the kids alone for a millisecond. He spends two hours playing baseball in the backyard with Nico, and he even convinces Ada to play the catcher. By bedtime, both of them are worn out, but Enzo seems to have tons of energy as he strips off his T-shirt and work pants.

“Did you check your blood pressure tonight?” he asks me.

You know what? I am getting super sick of him fretting over my blood pressure. “Yes,” I lie.

I checked it this morning. After all the excitement this evening, I don’t even want to know what it is now. I got the full work up my doctor recommended, and everything was negative. I’m just unlucky/defective.

“Did you try meditating?” he asks me.

He looked up a bunch of relaxation techniques that are supposed to lower blood pressure, and then he printed out a bunch of articles. Meditation topped the list, so he bought me a book about it, which is now collecting dust in one of our bookcases.

“Did you try meditation?” I shoot back. “It’s so boring.”

He laughs. “Okay, so we do together?”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Okay. How about massage?”

I laugh at the way he wags his eyebrows. Enzo gives very good massages. If he’s up for it, it’s tempting, but I am so tired. And a massage is never just a massage. Not with him.

“Maybe later,” I say.

He climbs into bed beside me and gets under the sheets. “I can’t believe we have an extra room we didn’t even know about,” he muses.

“That’s not an extra room. That is a hazard.”

“Maybe it is not safe right now, no,” he says. “But I bet with a little work, we could make it up to code.”

“We are not doing that, Enzo.”

“Why not?”

I throw up my hands. “You seriously need to ask me that question? You know how I feel about tiny enclosed spaces.”

He knows. He knows everything I’ve been through in the past and how I’ve been locked in a place like that, which I could not escape. Something like that gives you permanent claustrophobia.

This would be a good time for him to drop it, especially if he’s worried about my blood pressure. But for reasons I don’t understand, he doesn’t shut up.

“We could fix it up,” he insists. “Suzette says that?—”

“Oh? What does Suzette say? Please tell me everything Suzette thinks.”

He presses his lips together. “You know she is a real estate agent. This is what she does. She is offering her expertise.”

“You know,” I say, “maybe you would make more money if you spent more time working and less time in her yard.”

“I am only in her yard a little bit.”

“You’re always there!” I burst out. “In the middle of the night, no less!”

I hadn’t yet confronted him about finding him in Suzette’s yard at ten at night, and there’s no time like the present, especially when I’m already angry.

He blinks at me. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

“A few weeks ago, I saw you on Suzette’s lawn talking to her while I was putting the kids to bed,” I say. “What were you doing there?”

“I do not remember.” He truly looks like he means it. It’s very tempting to believe him. “She had some question. I think… she wanted a rose bush.”

“At ten at night?”

He shrugs. “Is not so late.”

Maybe not for him, when he’s up until all hours of the night.

“Look,” he says. “This is not about Suzette. It was my idea to convert the room. I thought the extra space would be nice.”

“Extra space?” I burst out. “Enzo, the last place we lived was a two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. This place still feels like a palace to me.”

“It’s just… it is a lot smaller than Suzette and Jonathan’s house.” He frowns. “You do not want that extra room?”

“I never want to go inside that room again.” I shudder at the thought of it. “And I thought you, of all people, knew me well enough that you wouldn’t even ask. If you want to do something with that room, you can buy some new wallpaper and seal it up so that I never have to look at it again. Okay?”

He opens his mouth as if to say something, but then he shuts it again. He does know me well enough to know I’m not going to budge on this. But at the same time, I can tell he still wants it. He wants to turn that tiny terrible room into some sort of playroom or office.

“Okay,” he says. “We discuss it later.”

Or never.