Ben was trying to cut an apple with a knife that had ambitions beyond its abilities.
"Give it here," Audrey said.
He looked at the blade, then at her. "I own a workshop full of sharp objects. This is an insult to my profession."
"Your profession repairs bicycles."
"Many of which would cut this apple more effectively."
She laughed and found a better knife in the drawer beside the sink. When she handed it over, he bowed his head with exaggerated dignity.
Their soup bowls were empty. Most of the bread had disappeared. Outside the guest kitchen, the inn was settling into evening: footsteps on the stairs, a door closing, the low sound of someone watching television in a room down the hall.
Ben divided the apple, cut away the bruised part, and pushed the better slices toward Audrey without comment.
It was something he had done for years. She had noticed it when they were younger, teased him for giving her the best part of everything on his plate, then eventually stopped seeing it as anything except what happened when they shared food.
She took a slice.
"You don't have to give me all the good ones."
"I like the slightly battered ones. They understand me."
"Ben."
He smiled and took one from her side of the plate. "There. Equality."
The humor was easy tonight. It did not erase the afternoon's difficult conversation, but it let the conversation belong to a larger evening. Audrey had been afraid that once they started talking honestly, every moment together would become solemn work.
Instead, her husband was making a ridiculous argument about apples, and she wanted to touch his face.
The thought startled her by arriving so clearly.
She looked down at the table. He was still talking, describing a customer who had insisted his bicycle made a noise only when he wasn't listening for it. Audrey followed the story, aware of the warmth of the room, the loosened collar of Ben's sweater, the familiar line of his mouth when he was about to laugh.
He finished the story and found her watching him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He raised an eyebrow.
She shook her head. "No. Not nothing. I was thinking that I like looking at you."
His expression changed slowly, as if he wanted to be certain he had heard her correctly.
"I like being looked at by you."
It was not a polished answer. She liked it better for that.
They washed up together, moving around the small kitchen. When Ben reached for a towel, his hand brushed hers. Neither moved away immediately. He looked at her, asking without turning the moment into a test.
Audrey stepped closer.
"You can kiss me," she said.
"I'd like to."
He set down the towel and touched her cheek. For a moment she could see their whole history in the small hesitation before he leaned toward her: the first shy kiss, the distracted ones over breakfast, the consoling ones during hard years, the recent careful space between them.
Then he kissed her, and memory became less interesting than the present.
She rested her hand on his shoulder and kissed him back. There was confidence in the way he drew her a little closer, and care in the way he paused long enough for her to choose that closeness too. She felt wanted without feeling hurried.
When they parted, Ben rested his forehead against hers for a moment.
"I've missed that," he said.
"So have I."
They stood in the quiet kitchen until somebody dropped a shoe on the floor above them with a startling thud. Audrey laughed, and Ben stepped back with his hand still loosely around hers.
"An excellent review from upstairs."
"One shoe out of two."
They finished cleaning. Ben checked that the stove was off. Audrey wiped the table and put the unused bread in the guest refrigerator with a label, an ordinary little task that did not feel burdensome when it was simply hers to finish and not part of everything she expected to do unnoticed.
He found the pen she had misplaced beneath a folded newspaper and handed it to her.
"What shall we write?" he asked.
"Hale. Wednesday lunch."
"Very businesslike. I was thinking 'excellent bread belonging to interesting people.'"
"Someone might eat it just to challenge the claim."
He bent to read her label, his shoulder against hers. She could smell the soap they had used and the faint salt of the afternoon still caught in his sweater. It pleased her that the kiss had not ended their easy conversation. There could be both: the man she wanted to kiss, and the man who made jokes while she labeled leftovers.
In the hallway, June was carrying a stack of folded towels.
"All went well?"
"Very well," Ben said.
Audrey looked at him. He managed to keep a straight face until June had gone.
They climbed the stairs together.
In their room, the window was dark except for a faint reflection of the lamp. Audrey sat on the edge of the bed to untie her shoes. Ben hung up his coat, then stayed by the wardrobe, apparently unsure what the kiss permitted him to assume.
She knew that hesitation from both sides now.
"I enjoyed kissing you," she said. "It doesn't mean I've decided everything."
"I didn't think it did."
"I know. I just wanted to say it before either of us tried to read the whole future into it."
He came to sit beside her, leaving a little space.
"Could it mean we enjoyed kissing each other?"
She smiled. "That seems sufficiently ambitious."
He reached for her hand. She let their fingers settle together.
For a while they watched the room's reflection in the window. Her shoulder leaned against his. The closeness was familiar enough to be comforting and unfamiliar enough to keep her aware of every small choice that had brought them to it.
"I'd like to take a walk by myself tomorrow morning," she said eventually.
She felt him shift, not away, but into alertness.
"All right."
"Not because tonight went wrong. Because I remembered today how much I like being outside without needing to make conversation."
He nodded. "I can find something to do."
"You don't need to fill the hour to prove you're fine."
He laughed softly. "You're getting dangerously familiar with my methods."
"Twenty-one years of research."
He looked at her. "Would you like to meet for lunch afterward?"
"Yes."
They chose a café near the inn and agreed on a time. Nothing dramatic. No declaration that independence would save their marriage. Just a morning that could belong to each of them separately, followed by a meeting they both wanted.
Later, when she turned off the lamp, Ben waited until she moved closer before putting his arm around her. She rested against him, listening to the distant sea.
There were still questions. They would be waiting in the morning, and eventually at home.
Tonight there was also the solid warmth of the man beside her, his hand resting lightly over hers, and the surprising pleasure of wanting to be exactly where she was.
She fell asleep before she had finished deciding what it meant.
