Seven Down

The crossword was waiting by my coffee, pencil balanced on the fold the way Bea leaves a pen when she wants it used. Monday light sat on the table. The kettle clicked off. I heard her in the hall, slow with her robe, and I already knew I was going to be late.

Seven down sat in the middle of the grid in her careful print. What you’ll get on Sunday (5).

I laughed out loud. Bea came in with her hair still wet and took the mug I had poured her without looking at the page.

“That’s not a professional grid,” I said.

“It’s not for the paper.”

“Five letters. You might as well have written it on the fridge.”

“Then fill it in.”

I did. Yours. The pencil dug a little. She watched the letters land and her mouth went soft at one corner, which was as good as a trumpet in this house.

“Eat,” she said. “You’ve got a review.”

“I could stay.”

“You could. You won’t.” She kissed the top of my head and stole a piece of toast off my plate. “Train.”

I took the puzzle. On the platform I filled six across and nine down and most of the upper left, standing because the seats were full. Half the grid by the time we went under the river. Twelve across I left blank. She who waits you out (8). I knew the shape of it. I would not give her the satisfaction of writing patience in a moving train.

The structural review was a room with bad blinds and a set of drawings I had already marked up twice. Someone from the city talked about load paths. I nodded in the right places. My pencil made notes that were almost about the bridge. In the margin, small, I wrote the clue again and stared at the empty boxes until the man beside me cleared his throat.

“Noor. The north abutment.”

“It holds,” I said. “If we stop adding things to it.”

That got a laugh I didn’t deserve. I spent the rest of the hour thinking about eight blank squares and my wife’s handwriting.

By evening the row house smelled like onions. Bea was at the stove in the shirt she cooks in, wooden spoon in one hand, crossword mind clearly elsewhere. I came up behind her and put my mouth on the side of her neck.

“New deal,” I said. “I solve the rest of this thing tonight. You let me have Sunday early. Call it a bonus round.”

“No.”

“I’ll do the dishes for a month.”

“You already lose that argument every week.”

“I’ll let you pick the film. Two films. I’ll sit through the credits.”

She turned the onions. They went from sharp to sweet while she ignored me. I tried the hip, the waist, a hand on her wrist. She let the hand stay and kept stirring.

“Bea.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s Monday. That’s a long week. I’m asking nicely.”

“You’re bargaining.” She turned the burner down, set the spoon on the rest, and faced me. Flour on one cuff. Eyes steady. “Come here.”

I did. She kissed me once, and she did not rush it. Her hand came up into my hair and held. Her mouth opened against mine and stayed. I made a sound I would have been embarrassed by in any other kitchen. I reached for the hem of her shirt. She caught my wrist, finished the kiss like she had planned the ending, and stepped back one full step.

My mouth was warm. The rest of me was not done.

“Rules,” she said, gentle and impossible. “A puzzle every morning. Nothing until Sunday. You can end the whole thing whenever you like. One word. Any word you pick. Say it and I stop, and we go back to the way we were, and I won’t sulk.”

The onions ticked in the pan.

“And if I don’t say it?”

“Then you wait. And I get to watch you wait.” Her smile was warm and a little wicked. “Which, I should tell you, I have been looking forward to.”

I could have said the word. It sat right there, unused. I picked up the spoon instead and nudged the onions before they caught.

“I’m not saying it.”

“I know.” She took the spoon back. “Set the table. And stop trying to buy Sunday with film credits. I already know how that movie ends.”

Tuesday’s grid was on the counter when I came down. Wednesday’s too, in its turn, and Thursday’s, each one mean in a polite way. I solved them on the train and left one clue open every time, out of spite or superstition. Twelve across from Monday stayed in my bag, unfinished. At work I approved a change order without arguing, which scared two people on my team. At night I slept on my side of the bed and listened to Bea turn a page, and I did not reach across. The not-reaching was the loudest thing in the room.

Thursday we ended up on the couch with the lamps low and a pot of tea neither of us finished. Her feet were in my lap. I had the Monday puzzle out again, twelve across still empty, and I was losing to a piece of paper.

“I asked you for this because I rush everything,” I said.

Bea put her book down. She didn’t make a joke. That was how I knew she had been waiting for the sentence.

“Work,” I said. “Food. Sleep. You. I get to the good part and I try to finish it before it can change its mind. I asked you to make me wait, and I thought I was being funny. I’m not only being funny.”

Her foot pressed once against my thigh, a small yes.

“I want someone I trust to slow me down,” I said. “That’s you. It’s been you. I didn’t know it would feel like this. I don’t like how much I like it.”

“Which part don’t you like?”

“The part where I check the clock at work and think about Sunday. The part where I almost said the word on Monday and didn’t, and felt proud of myself for not saying it. That’s ridiculous. I’m forty. I design things that are supposed to hold still.”

Bea took the puzzle out of my hands and set it on the arm of the couch. She shifted until she was close enough that our knees touched.

“I’ve been enjoying it more than I expected,” she said. “I thought I would like the grids. I always like the grids. What I didn’t expect was the look on you when I step back. You go quiet. You stay. You don’t try to win for a whole minute, and then you try to win again, and both of those are…” She searched, which she rarely does out loud. “Mine. That’s the part. Not the teasing. You, choosing the wait, and letting me see it.”

I had nothing clever. I turned her hand over and fit my fingers between hers. She let them stay.

“Sunday,” I said.

“Sunday,” she said. “Not before.”

We sat like that until the tea was cold. I did not fill in twelve across. I already knew the word. Writing it felt like handing her the round.

Saturday night the house was quiet in the way it gets when neither of us has a reason to be anywhere else. I was on the couch in socks, pretending to read a report. Bea came in from the kitchen with nothing in her hands and sat beside me, close, knee to knee.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

She looked at my mouth. I looked back. Neither of us asked. She leaned in and kissed me, and this time she did not step away after one. Her hand settled on my face, thumb along my cheek, and she kissed me like she had all evening and intended to use it. I kissed her back. My hand found her hair. Her hand dropped to my wrist and stayed there, warm, keeping count. I pulled her closer by the front of her shirt. She made a low sound and kissed me again, slower, then again. The report slid to the floor. I didn’t care where it landed.

I was shaking a little. She would feel it in my wrist. I didn’t try to hide it.

She stopped.

Her forehead rested against mine for a breath. Her hand stayed on my face. Then she drew back, reached to the side table, and slid a folded puzzle across the coffee table. Face down. The pencil was already on it.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

I put my hand flat on the paper. The fold pressed into my palm. I didn’t turn it over. Upstairs the bedroom was dark and would keep. Sunday was a few hours off, and for once I did not try to get there faster.