On the drive home Lucy said the brownies were dry. Greg said office brownies were always dry. Helen said, “Jess seems bright.” Greg said, “She’s good at her job.” The windows were down. Summer air came through. Nothing in the car sounded like a future problem. That is how future problems sound: like a car ride that is fine.
Bedtime in the Porter house was a short play they had performed a thousand times. Bath if needed. Pajamas. Two books, sometimes one if Lucy was already sliding. Greg did the voices when he was home. Helen did the hair. Lucy asked the same questions in rotation: why do bugs fly into lights, can a person live on a horse, is Daddy going to work tomorrow. On the Friday before the ironing Saturday she asked, “Can I be pretty when I grow up.” Helen said, “You’re pretty now.” Lucy said, “Pretty like a dress.” Helen said, “Pretty like you.” Greg, from the door, said, “Pretty like trouble.” Lucy giggled. Helen shot him a look that was almost a smile. He did not know he was already inside the joke’s other meaning.
After Lucy was down, Helen and Greg stood in the kitchen and talked about a bill and a neighbor’s dog and whether the recliner needed to be replaced. Greg said the recliner was his friend. Helen said his friend was ugly. He said loyal things are allowed to be ugly. She let him have the line. They were, that night, still a couple who could do lines. He went to the guest room after she went to brush her teeth and looked at the dress and closed the door again. She came out and asked what he was doing. He said he was looking for the extra batteries. She said they were in the junk drawer. He said right. The extra batteries were in the junk drawer. The dress was in the guest room. Both facts existed. Only one was offered.
The faucet they had meant to fix still dripped on Saturday morning. Helen put a towel down and did not call it a metaphor. Greg said he would get to it after the paper. After the paper would not come. After the paper would be a close-up and a sentence that could not tighten a washer.
Lucy ate cereal standing up, which Helen usually forbade and that morning allowed because Saturday had a looser spine. Milk dotted the table. Lucy said she was going to find the good scissors. Helen said the good scissors were not toys. Lucy said she knew. Knowing and obeying are different skills at six. She went down the hall with cereal still in her mouth. Helen heard a door. She thought bedroom. It was guest room. The difference would take an hour to arrive in the living room.
Greg poured coffee into the mug that would later sit on the coffee table like a witness who had seen nothing useful. He kissed Helen’s cheek. She smelled toothpaste and newspaper ink that was not yet on his fingers. She said don’t drip on the polo. He said the polo had already lived a life. She said everything in this house has. It was a throwaway. Throwaways last.
He sat. He opened the paper. He became the composition of Shot 1 without knowing a shot was coming: faded navy polo, khaki home pants, white socks, gold band, tired kind hazel eyes, a man reading as if reading could keep a week from walking down the hall in one shoe.
Helen plugged in the iron. The board opened with its familiar complaint. She took a white shirt from the basket, shook it once, laid it out, and began the long rectangular prayer of a woman who still believed weekends could be put in order. Steam rose. The window light from the left found her chestnut hair and the claw clip and the washed blue tee and made her look, to anyone passing the house, like a person whose Saturday was safe.