Those were the nights Diego’s smile lasted all the way through the wheel.
Christmas that year they stayed in the townhouse. Diego’s mother sent a box. Ana’s mother sent fruit. Lila wanted a dog and got a stuffed one and named it Sam, which made Diego groan and Ana laugh, a real laugh, the first in a while that did not sound borrowed. They put a small tree near the window. Lights. Lila hung a lopsided ornament. Diego lifted her. Ana took a picture. In the picture no one is looking at the driveway. That was the point of the picture.
On New Year’s Eve they did not go out. They let Lila stay up too late and she fell asleep across both their laps on the sectional. Diego’s hand and Ana’s hand met on the child’s back by accident and stayed. Fireworks somewhere off the main road. Rain later, because this town did rain on holidays as if it had a contract.
In February Lila had a fever. They took turns. Diego remembered the Tuesday of wet hair and did not say so. Ana remembered Eric at the door while a child slept and did not say so. They gave medicine. They watched cartoons at two in the morning. Lila asked for the hat once, half-asleep. Diego said, “No hat. Water.” She drank. The word hat passed through the room and did not catch fire. That was progress measured in the smallest unit.
Money got tight in March because a deductible at St. Mary’s hit them and the association fee went up. They fought about cable. They fought about a pair of shoes Lila did not need. The fights were ugly and ordinary and blessedly about money. Ana said you always think I’m careless. Diego said I think we have to count. Then they counted. Then they stopped fighting about shoes.
Rosa called in April and said she was having another cookout. Diego said we’ll bring chairs. Ana said we’ll bring salsa that doesn’t get tree in it. They went. They danced one song, still terrible. Rosa took a picture. Ana asked her not to post it. Rosa said why. Ana said I just don’t want the internet today. Rosa shrugged. The picture lived on Rosa’s phone and not on a feed. Ana slept better that night for no clean reason.
Diego, on a break at the hospital, stood in a courtyard smokers used and did not smoke. A coworker said you quit shifts, you look more human. Diego said that was the idea. The coworker said good. Then a call came and they both went back in. Human would have to wait for the next courtyard.
Ana, at a red light, saw a black luxury sedan in the next lane and her hands went cold on the wheel. It was not him. The plate was local and the driver was a woman. Ana laughed at her own body. She told Diego that night. He said my body does that with any black car now. She said I’m sorry. He said I know. They were repeating themselves. Repeating is how people stitch a year.
By the time the rain came around again on the calendar, Lila had lost a tooth. She put it under her pillow. Diego did the dollar. Ana wrote a note from a fairy and then crumpled it because the house had had enough fiction. She left only the dollar. Lila did not complain. She said the fairy must have been in a hurry. Diego, in the kitchen, said the fairy works second shift. Ana looked at him. He shrugged. She let the joke live.
That is a marriage after a key: jokes that almost touch the wound and then go to the sink.
They did not become new people. They became people who had been told, by a five-year-old, what the driveway held, and who had not thrown the child away with the cap, and who had not thrown each other away on the first night, and who still might, on some other night, and who so far had not.
The black car stayed out of the driveway.
The Honda stayed.
The Toyota stayed.
The gold band stayed on Diego’s hand. He had turned it around and around on the sofa that first night. He still turned it sometimes. Ana still saw him do it. She did not ask him to stop. The turning was his screwdriver now, a small repair he had to do with his own fingers.
When Lila ran down the hall, they both still looked at her hands.
Empty hands.
A drawing.
A stuffed Sam.