‘The lengths some people will go to to get out of the worst jobs,’ Joe quipped, and, shaking his hands, he wiped them on his jeans and gave his brother a crooked smile. ‘Take a pew, for God’s sake, before you fall down.’
He pulled a chair out, steered his brother towards it and propped his broken leg on another chair while Joy put the kettle on. Fran moved to his side, laying her hand gently on his shoulder, afraid to hurt him until her mental map of his bruises was more accurate, but he just tilted his head and smiled at her, covered her hand with his and squeezed her fingers.
In the busy, crowded kitchen you would have thought such a tiny gesture would go unnoticed, but suddenly you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone stopped talking and stared at them, then looked away, finding things to do, a burst of conversation ending the brief, deafening silence.
Was it really so strange that she should go to him, that he should touch her, that his entire family had stopped in their tracks and stared?
Evidently it was.
Mike, looking up at her, hadn’t even noticed, but she had, and it made her wish they’d all go away. Their marriage felt so fragile at the moment; they needed to work on it, to find out if they had anything left, to piece together, slowly and painstakingly, the fragments of their love, and she wasn’t sure she could do that under the penetrating gaze of their relations.
Because what if, like Humpty Dumpty, they couldn’t put it together again? If, at the end, they found there simply weren’t enough pieces left to make it work…?
They had to make it work. Anything else was unthinkable. And so, burying her natural reticence, she bent her head and kissed him. It was the merest touch of her lips to his, but it was a sign, and a promise, and his eyes met hers and held them for a long moment. Then he squeezed her hand again where it rested on his shoulder, and the world started to breathe once more…
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