Despite spending all day getting ready, Johnny arrived late, breathless and apologetic. He offered her the car keys, but she let him drive. She saw familiar places anew, as if she'd been away for years. Once they were off the clogged highway, she relaxed and stretched her arm across the back of his seat and playfully tugged at Johnny's ponytail before settling her hand on his shoulder, inside his t-shirt. She turned to the back, let the boys risk spoiling their tea with the small treasures she'd gleaned from the trip, and mediated impartially, without threat or punishment, on the tales told on one another.
Toni will tell her family stories about Rob that make him sound like a harmless eccentric, not a potential rival for the marital bed, someone the boys must be persuaded to call 'uncle'. She'll show off a little, and Johnny will smile, not wholly certain about the technicalities of why but endlessly proud of her all the same. She'll forget her disappointment and promise a trip to see a glacier one day, and she'll let herself believe, for the while, that Johnny really is going to make a decent living from singing Wheels on the bus to pre-schoolers. As she eats and praises the tea he's prepared, she'll listen to all the domestic news, and allow the cat for once to warm her lap at the table, and, in time, but not too soon, she'll invent a special family game that requires young boys to spot signs of the fifth season. She'll have secrets and no one to share them with, and, for this night, at least, her house will hold everything she'd ever wanted. Tomorrow is Saturday, and Toni won't get up early to walk. Instead, she'll nudge Johnny, naked and sated, from their bed to make her coffee.