“Oliver,” I say. “Come on. Hit Send.”

He swallows, and hits the button. When he looks back at me, his eyes are afraid and glassy.

“Ol…”

He swallows.

“What if—what if she doesn’t like me?” He looks at me. “What if I…don’t like her?”

I look at him.

“I don’t know,” I admit, then clear my throat, thinking of the line Mom used on me. “But that’s a rather gloomy cart you’re putting before the horse.”

Oliver shakes his head at me.

“I suppose you’re right. Come here, Gill.” I do, and he taps his plastic beaker of wine next to mine.

“To horses and carts,” he says. “In their proper places.”

I’m thinking about what Lorna said earlier about the movies we play in our heads. She meant books, but you could say the same thing about our whole lives: how we’re all playing a movie in our head the whole time, and everyone’s movie is different. I think about Lorna, and how in a while her movie might not be playing anymore. How even the boring parts of the movie are worth being grateful for. And how all our movies tell the same story differently. What would I learn if I could sit in the seat beside Mom’s movie projector, and watch how it all looks to her eyes? What would I learn if I’d been able to watch the movie inside Dad’s head? What would I see in Abigail’s; what would I see in Oliver’s?

By the time we’re all talked out I feel a sudden wall of exhaustion hit me, as though my brain’s been sending me small reminders for hours and now suddenly, like a petulant child, has had enough.

I lie back down on the bed, still in my clothes.

“Gill?” Oliver’s voice drifts towards me like a sound through fog. “Are you going to brush your teeth? And take off your clothes?”

“Nope,” I grunt. “None of the above.”

I hear the slight laugh in his voice.

“Good to know. Hey—move over a little.”

I hear the creak and feel the weight of Oliver moving onto the bed beside me. There’s the sound of bedding rustling. Oliver’s body spoons against mine, his arm around my stomach. The clunk of a heavy men’s shoe falling to the floor, and then the other.

Somewhere from deep in my sleepy brain, laughter bubbles up.

“Gill?” Oliver says, bewildered.

“Waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I murmur, and wonder how long I’ve been feeling that way. Weeks, certainly. But months? Years?

I don’t think Oliver’s heard me, but then he squeezes the arm around my belly. And we lie there a little longer, until a final wave of grateful exhaustion comes over me like a tide, and without a chance to say another word, I’m pulled under.

*