Free Before He Finds Her by Michael Kardos Page A

light always made her face lovely, for instance, but today her beauty staggered him.
    And when he stepped into the house, he was struck by its tidiness. The housekeeper came on Wednesdays, letting herself in and out, but by Friday, especially when Allie was alone all week with the kid, the place would revert to its natural state. Not today.
    He followed Meg inside. “The house looks great,” he told Allie. “So do you.” It immediately occurred to him he should have reversed the order of compliments.
    “You didn’t tell me they were coming over,” Allie said.
    “I didn’t? The guys? Sure, I did.”
    “No.”
    Of course they needed to rehearse, with the gig on Sunday. But maybe he hadn’t told her. When she bent down to kiss Meg on the head, saying, “Hi, sweetie,” Ramsey saw that underneath Allie’s Monmouth College sweatshirt was a lacy red bra. The panties would match, he was sure of it. Allie used to keep two sets of underclothes, one for when Ramsey was on the road and another for when he was home. He only ever saw the shapeless, faded garments in the laundry hamper, until after the baby was born, at which point dutifully separated laundry became an extravagance, and the only pertinent question became whether something was clean enough.
    These small surprises—tidy house, sexy underwear—were like Easter eggs for him to find. A lit candle somewhere filled the house with the smell of fall. A Sam Cooke CD was playing, though the sounds coming from the garage drowned it out.
    Meg ran through the house toward the kitchen. Watching their daughter together somehow reset their reunion. “It’s good to see you,” Allie said. She placed a hand on his arm and kissed his lips. “Thanks for getting her today.”
    “Happy to,” he said. Allie could have gotten Meg from day care herself—she often came home from work early on Fridays—but before leaving town last week Ramsey had said he would do it. He had developed, over the years, this technique for proving his own decency to himself—making small promises that he could fulfill. This time the promise had come from the basic need to spend a little time alone with Meg before the weekend’s bustle of activity.
    Six, seven years ago he would come home from a week away, and within minutes he and Allie would fall into bed. But Allie was still trying, the Easter eggs proved it, and Ramsey knew he ought to try, too. His face needed a shave, his hair a trim. He didn’t like wearing sunglasses, and over the years his squinting had etched permanent gouges in his face. He should’ve exercised more. He was thin, always had been, but that wasn’t the same as being fit. Not like when he was younger and could drink a twelve-pack and spend the whole next day in the sun doing some rich guy’s yard work.
    In the kitchen, Meg was peeling magnetic letters off the refrigerator and dropping them on to the floor. “I was thinking we could get pizza for the guys,” Ramsey said. “From the good place.”
    “How long do you think rehearsal will go?”
    “Don’t know—but I’ll make sure we turn everything down at eight.” Meg’s bedtime.
    “Because I was hoping you and I could have some time tonight.”
    Already the plastic letters were everywhere. Now Meg was over by the toy barn. When she threw a plastic pig across the room, Allie said, “Sweetie, don’t throw the animals,” and Meg pursed her lips and slammed a cow onto the ground.
    “Are you little mad?” Ramsey asked her, and cursed himself for forgetting to use this surefire trick back at the park.
    “ Big mad,” she answered, already smiling, her anger allayed by their inside joke.
    Ramsey winked at Meg and said to Allie, “The thing is, this isn’t some ordinary jam session. We got a gig coming up.”
    “You do?” Feigned astonishment. “Why, I had no idea.”
    Okay, he deserved that. He’d been yammering on about the gig for weeks. But Allie only knew the half of it. There hadn’t been time during