Don't Decide for Me

The next time Elena arrived, she had slept badly.

Adrian knew before she mentioned it. Her hand shook slightly as she poured coffee, and there was a small burn on the back of her wrist.

"What happened?"

She followed his gaze.

"Kettle. I was holding Mia and trying to make tea. A poor combination."

"Is she ill?"

"No. The radiator kept banging all night. She decided something was living inside it."

Mia looked up from her toast.

"It growled."

"It needs a valve," Elena said.

"When is the landlord fixing it?"

"He said he'll send someone."

Adrian heard the weariness beneath the answer.

He thought about the three flights of stairs, the noisy refrigerator, the long commute on mornings when she couldn't accept a ride.

He thought about her sleeping somewhere warm and quiet.

More honestly, he thought about her sleeping somewhere close.

"I'll handle it," he said.

Elena was wiping jam from Mia's chin.

"Handle what?"

His phone rang before he answered.

He took the call in the corridor and made another when it ended.

By noon, his property manager had sent photographs of an apartment two blocks from the townhouse. Two bedrooms, an elevator, a quiet courtyard. It belonged to a family holding company and had been vacant for months.

Adrian approved fresh paint, checked that the heating worked, and asked for a crib-sized bed to be replaced with something suitable for a three-year-old.

He pictured Mia arguing with him about curtains.

He pictured Elena at the kitchen counter in the cream sweater.

He did not ask himself why the pictures mattered so much.

At four, he returned home with the keys.

Elena stood in the back sitting room folding a blanket. Mia was with Rosa, inspecting a batch of biscuits through the oven door.

"I found you somewhere," he said.

She turned.

"Somewhere for what?"

He handed her the photographs.

She looked at the first one, then the next.

"An apartment?"

"Two bedrooms. Close enough to walk here. The building is quiet."

Her fingers stopped moving.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you and Mia shouldn't spend another winter negotiating with a broken radiator."

She looked up slowly.

"Did you rent this?"

"I own it."

"Of course you do."

He mistook the softness of her voice for relief.

"They can have it ready by the weekend. My driver can help with the boxes."

Elena put the photographs on the table.

Precisely. One corner aligned with the next.

Adrian recognized anger a second too late.

"You arranged for me to move?"

"I arranged an option."

"With paint and furniture and someone to carry my boxes."

"You don't have to take it."

"Then why are you holding keys?"

He closed his hand around them.

The small sound they made seemed suddenly obnoxious.

"Because I thought you'd want to see it."

"You could have asked."

"You would have said no before looking."

She stared at him.

He heard his mistake. He had meant that she refused help too quickly. What he had said was that her answer mattered only after he had arranged everything around it.

But she was already stepping back.

"What happens if I stop working here?"

"Nothing happens."

"What happens if we argue?"

"We're arguing now. You still have the apartment."

"I don't have it. I haven't agreed to anything."

"Elena, I'm trying to make your life easier."

"Then listen when I tell you what would help."

He looked toward the kitchen. Rosa's voice drifted through the doorway, reminding Mia that biscuits could not be hurried by shouting.

He lowered his own voice.

"Tell me."

Elena folded her arms, then let them fall.

"A little patience when I'm tired. A day off if the plumber finally comes. Being able to tell you something went wrong without wondering what you'll purchase before lunch."

He almost said that the apartment cost him nothing to use.

For once, he managed not to.

"That building is where Mia knows everyone," she continued. "The woman downstairs gives her a strawberry when we buy bread. Our neighbor has her spare mittens. Daniel painted the little marks on her bedroom wall."

Her voice caught, and she looked furious with herself for it.

"I know I can't live in a room because he painted it. I know that. But I get to decide when we leave."

Adrian set down the keys.

"I wasn't trying to take that away."

"I know. That's what makes this difficult."

Her eyes were bright. He wanted to cross the room, put his hands on her shoulders, and make her understand that he had pictured her comfortable, safe, near him.

Near him.

The last part would not stay buried.

"I don't like the stairs," he said.

Elena blinked.

"What?"

"I don't like you carrying her up three flights when you're exhausted. I don't like watching you leave after dinner when she's already asleep."

She stopped looking at the keys.

"You could have said that."

"I'm saying it now."

"After arranging a home I can't afford without you."

The words hit harder because he had never thought of the apartment that way.

He looked at the photographs. Spacious rooms. Good windows. A courtyard.

He had been so pleased by the solution that he had forgotten there was a woman at the center of it who might want something he had not selected.

"I should have asked," he said.

Her shoulders lowered a fraction.

"Yes."

The concession cost him less than he expected.

What followed cost more.

"I don't want you to feel you have to accept anything because you work here."

Elena looked at him for a long time.

"Then don't look so angry when I refuse."

He rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"I'm not used to being this bad at something."

"You aren't bad at helping. You just like choosing the entire answer."

He almost smiled. She almost did too.

Then Mia appeared carrying a biscuit on a folded napkin.

"Rosa says this one's not hot."

She held it out to Adrian.

He crouched and took a bite from the edge.

"You have to take it," she informed him.

"I thought we were sharing."

"I'm getting another one."

He looked up at Elena.

For a second, the argument loosened around them.

Then the child noticed her mother's face.

"Are you sad?"

"I'm tired, sweetheart. Go put Rabbit in your bag."

Mia obeyed, dragging one hand along the wall as she went.

Adrian stood.

"You can take tomorrow off for the plumber. I'll tell the house manager."

"Thank you."

The formality stung.

Elena folded the blanket she had abandoned and put it on the sofa.

"I should get her home."

There it was again. The part of the day he had begun to dread.

He watched her pick up her coat.

"Elena."

She turned.

"The apartment wasn't only about the heating."

She went still.

He could stop. He could leave the admission small enough to pass for concern about an employee and her child.

She was watching him with an expression that made evasion feel cowardly.

"I know," she said.

He took a step toward her.

"Do you?"

Her fingers tightened on the coat.

"I know you miss Mia when she isn't here."

Adrian looked at her mouth, then back at her eyes.

"You think that's all I miss?"

The color rose in her face.

She did not retreat, but he saw how carefully she held herself.

"I need you to say what you mean," she whispered. "I can't keep guessing just because I'm afraid of the answer."

His hand closed on the back of a chair.

"I wait for you," he said. "I come home early hoping you haven't left. I invent reasons to walk into rooms because you're in them."

Her breath caught.

The kitchen clock ticked behind him.

"And when you stay for dinner," he continued, "I'm not watching the clock because I want you to go."

Elena looked down at her coat, then raised her eyes again.

"If you want me to stay, Adrian, ask me."

She swallowed.

"Ask me as a woman you want to have dinner with. Not someone whose problems you can solve."

He let go of the chair.

For the first time that afternoon, he knew exactly what he should have done first.