Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley Read Free Book Online Page A

thirty.”
    â€œExactly.”
    Rose receded to the kitchen. Josh followed, his eyes trailing up the stairs toward his sleeping progeny.
    â€œI thought you let them stay up on Fridays.”
    â€œTournament tomorrow. Hemsford.”
    Josh made a face. “That’s a hike.”
    â€œI have to get them up at six. It’s not going to be pretty.”
    Josh quirked his mouth. A day in the sunshine watching his boys, talking to other dads. Seeing families be people and not next of kin. Sounded pretty great. “I wish I could go with you.”
    Rose pursed her lips. Thought, Me too.
    But she didn’t say it.
    She didn’t need to. There were a lot of things Josh and Rose didn’t say to each other now. There was no reason. They both already knew the stifled complaints. He was never home. She was never interested. He was lonely. She was resentful.
    Why talk about things they didn’t have the energy to change? Someday it would, but not now. Right now it was better just to accept that the best their marriage could do was keep its head above the swells. Tread water and wait for the waves to carry it closer to shore.
    Rose changed the subject. “Just in case Isaac tries to divide and conquer, he asked for a bicycle for his birthday.… It’s not…” She trailed off, correcting, “Just don’t get suckered into promising anything.”
    â€œHe’s gonna be eight, Rosie.”
    â€œIf he gets one, Adam will start and I don’t—”
    â€œI see injuries all day and I think you’re making more of this—”
    Rose closed her eyes to him. Buried her face in her hands.
    Her husband stopped talking. Stared at his wife. It was quiet for a moment as they both gauged the things they didn’t want to say.
    The dishwasher shifted cycles, grinding out a new pitch.
    Finally, through her fingers, Rose’s voice emerged. “Can we just … can we just … put a pin in this? All I want is for my day to end.”
    Josh nodded. It was a pass. A near miss of a disagreement. “Yep. Sure. Got it.”
    Ten minutes later, Josh was deep into the DVR’s cache of SportsCenter and Rose was on her way to the island. They did not forget to kiss each other good night.
    *   *   *
    Their lives would have been simpler had Josh and Rose stopped loving each other. Or if their love had faded into the background, like so many other relationships—a remnant of the past, the reason for the present.
    But Josh and Rose loved each other with a depth and breadth that surpassed the love they had before their children were born. To an outsider, witness to the facts of their marriage—the lack of sex, the disagreements, the absenteeism—this might not be obvious, but their love evidenced in the smaller truths that built the facts.
    On most nights, almost without fail, after the kids were tucked into bed, Rose would catch Josh scrolling through his cell phone, scanning their retirement portfolio. It was a ritual that seemed to soothe him, so it never bothered Rose. It wasn’t an act of greed, an obsessive concern over the accumulation of money.
    Rose knew that, for Josh, it was an act of romance.
    It was not numbers he saw in those expanding and contracting accounts, but a life lived with her. In them he saw the boys grown into men, Penny blooming into a younger version of his wife. The house they would one day be able to live in, the vacations they would one day be able to take. He saw Rose happy. He saw Rose relaxed, because there was finally enough of what they did not have now—money and time together.
    Rose understood the numbers and columns were an affirmation to Josh that now was not all there would ever be. He would be reassured, as he pushed through long and difficult shifts, that there was a reason for all of it. Someday things would be different.
    Josh’s love for her shone through in his words and actions. It