down.
It was the strangest feeling. Charlotte on one side of him, helping him to a generous portion from the dish and pushing the salad bowl towards him. Isaac on the other side, sitting on a cushion so that he could reach the table. It was almost as though they’d taken him in, rather than the other way round.
‘Would you like some water?’ Charlotte was still on her feet, leaning across the table to place a beaker of water in front of Isaac.
‘No, thank you. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get some wine.’
She hesitated. Clearly debating whether or not she was going to allow him to contribute to the meal even in this way. ‘Um...yes. Thank you. That would be nice.’
Edward got to his feet and went to the kitchen, fetching a couple of glasses and a bottle from the chiller. When he returned he was gratified to find that she’d done as he’d asked, and was sitting, her hands in her lap.
He placed a glass in front of her, uncorked the bottle and poured.
‘Thanks. That’s enough.’
She’d only let him half fill the glass but that was okay. It was the principle of it. Something had been accepted into the routine that they were building.
Isaac was watching his every move, eyes wide as saucers. ‘Can I have some?’
‘No, sweetie, this is for grown-ups.’ Charlotte quietened him with a quick look.
‘Pleeeease.’ Isaac was obviously unused to not sharing everything with his mother.
‘I’ve got something better for you.’
Edward gave him a conspiratorial grin and the boy quietened. He went to fetch a sturdier glass from the kitchen cupboard—not the fine crystal that he’d given to Charlotte, but a nice-looking faceted tumbler—and grabbed a bottle of sparkling raspberry cordial from the fridge.
‘Here you are.’ He set the glass in front of Isaac and filled it. ‘Try this.’
He sat down, aware that Charlotte’s smile was on him. It seemed to slide into his senses, warm and tingling, like fine brandy. Isaac took a sip from his glass and gave the same nod of approval that his mother had given when she’d tasted her wine. He was a part of this little treat.
Funnily enough, Edward felt a part of it, too. Eating together...praising Charlotte on the meal. Hearing the silly jokes passing between Isaac and Charlotte, which both of them expected him to laugh at, too. He was probably expected to tell a few, as well, but he couldn’t think of any that they might like at the moment. But even that didn’t seem to matter.
The doorbell rang.
Isaac jumped and would have spilled his drink if Edward hadn’t put out a hand to steady it. Instead his fork slithered to the floor, bouncing across the rug and clattering noisily on the wooden parquet.
‘Let’s not answer that.’ Edward shot a grin at the boy. Doorbells didn’t appear to be his favourite thing at the moment, and who could blame him?
‘It’s okay.’ Charlotte passed her own fork over to Isaac and bent to retrieve his. ‘It might be something important.’
Isaac’s gaze pleaded silently with him.
‘So what if it is? We’re eating.’ A feeling of bravado, quite out of proportion with the deed, sparked in Edward’s chest.
‘But it could be a friend. Someone you know.’
Unlikely. And if it were they’d know him well enough not to give up after the first ring. Opening the door when the bell rang was one of those things that Edward classed as optional.
‘If it is they’ll ring again. Or phone me.’ Edward generally picked up the phone. Unless he was in the middle of something really interesting.
She laughed. ‘Aren’t you even curious?’
Edward shrugged. ‘It’s probably someone wanting to sell me something.’ And, anyway, he was making a point.
‘And a man’s home is his castle, eh?’
‘Er...possibly. In a manner of speaking.’ It was certainly somewhere that his mind could wander freely. Explore the nuances that everyday life seemed to ignore so heedlessly. He hadn’t thought about the aspect of fortification, though...
Charlotte leaned towards him. ‘It’s just an expression. One size fits all.’
She was smiling at him, and that smile seemed to banish all thoughts of whether, either in truth or in paradigm, his home really was a castle. All he could do in the face of such unarguable persuasion was smile back.
‘Yeah. Well, then, whatever size my home is...’ he flipped a glance towards Isaac, hoping he’d get the point ‘...or I am, it’s definitely a castle. Which means I don’t have to answer the doorbell if I don’t want to.’
Isaac seemed to understand and turned his attention back to his meal. Charlotte was more difficult to satisfy.
‘So... Don’t you think you’re missing out on something?’
‘Like what?’ Like the world that she seemed to inhabit? The one where she seemed to navigate chance meetings and random conversations so easily.
‘I don’t know. That’s the thing, isn’t it?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s no one. And, anyway, we’re eating.’ He turned back to the plate in front of him. ‘And this is very good.’
CHARLOTTE HAD STACKED the dishwasher, sat with Isaac until he started to yawn, and then taken him up to bed. She tucked him in, along with Stinky, in the small second guest room which adjoined her own, and closed the connecting door between the two. Isaac had slept soundly for the last two nights, and showed no signs of doing anything else tonight.
Edward had seen to it that Isaac should feel at home here. When he’d taken them both back to the house on Saturday afternoon he’d filled the boot of his car with Isaac’s things—toys, games, clothes—so that he shouldn’t wake in the night and find himself in a completely strange place. Somehow the molecule modelling kit had found its way up here, too, and Charlotte wondered whether Edward had put it there. The thought made her smile.
When she got back downstairs the room was silent. Edward was in an easy chair with his nose in a book. Not wanting to disturb him, Charlotte retreated to the kitchen and set about cutting sandwiches for Isaac’s lunch tomorrow.
It was awkward being alone with him. At work, and when Isaac was around, she had a reason to ignore the desire to touch him. Now it was just him and her, and the empty space between them seemed almost to be daring her to breach it.
She’d finished the sandwiches, and was sitting at the kitchen table wondering what to do next, when the door opened quietly.
‘Hey.’
‘Oh...’ She jumped, almost spilling the
