Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 56 of 57

They came back down the ridge Sunday night and the cottage swallowed them whole. Azure had a diaper rash. Skye would not take the bottle. Rose left a note on the counter about the pediatrician moving Tuesday's visit to Monday. Scarlett stood in the kitchen with her coat still on and felt the cabin peel off her like a coat she couldn't keep. By Wednesday they had not touched each other past a hand on a shoulder in the hall. Clayton took the night feed at two so she could sleep. She took the four so he could sleep. They traded the babies at the changing table like a shift change at the barn. Thursday she found him at the kitchen sink at midnight, rinsing bottles. His good shirt hung on the chair. She stood in the doorway in the milk-stained shirt and watched his back. "The cabin didn't take," she said. "It took. The cottage is louder." "I don't know how to be your wife in this house anymore. Only their mother." He dried his hands on the towel. He turned around. "Then we make a rule," he said. "A rule." "Friday nights. Rose takes them from seven to seven. Every week. Not the porch. Not ten minutes. The whole night. In our bed." "She'll say yes and then wear herself thin." "She already offered. Tuesday. I didn't tell you because I wanted to ask you first." She leaned on the doorframe. The dishwasher ticked. "One night a week," she said. "One night. Locked door. No monitor." "No monitor." "You heard me." She laughed. It came out rough. She had not laughed in the kitchen in a month. Friday she put the twins in the car seats at six-thirty. Rose took them with a canvas bag of bottles and a look that said she had been waiting to be asked. Scarlett watched the taillights go down the drive and stood on the porch until she could not hear the truck anymore. She went upstairs. She opened the cedar box under the bed and took out the lace nightgown she had packed for the honeymoon and worn only once. She put it on. She brushed her hair. Clayton came in from the barn at seven. He set his hat on the hook. He looked up the stairs and saw her on the landing. "Lock the door," she said. He locked it. They did not talk about the babies. They did not check the phone. He read one of the old letters aloud from the stack on the nightstand, the one she wrote him two Aprils ago, and she finished the sentence he could not read through the ink. She was his wife again for twelve hours. At seven in the morning Rose's truck came up the drive. Scarlett met her at the door with coffee and clean arms. The rule held. Something in the house had shifted a foot to the left and stayed there.