Read Online Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley - Free Book Online Page B

fell asleep. They were happy.
    Rose’s mind raced. Filled with Hugo.
    *   *   *
    Josh had Sunday off. Though he’d wanted to take the kids to the park, maybe convince Penny to try the slide, the rain spoiled his plans.
    Instead he had made pancakes. He had had to ask Rose every step of the way where the necessary tools were (“Whisk?” “Top drawer.” “Griddle?” “Lower cabinet”), but he had managed to make a family meal without poisoning them all.
    Even Rose, who could get testy about the mess Josh would make in the kitchen, didn’t seem to mind as much as usual. She sat at the table, staring out at the rain hitting their backyard, while he took requests from the kids: A kitty for Pen. A Mickey for Adam. A spider for Isaac.
    After breakfast, everyone stayed in their pajamas. Though neither Rose nor Josh said it, there was an implicit agreement that today would be a “do-nothing day.” Josh lay on the floor with the boys, playing a third to their adventures; policing Penny, making sure none of their Legos ended up in her mouth.
    He was enamored with them. Fascinated. When did Penny start stringing so many words together? When did Isaac’s legs get so long? When did Adam start looking so much like a tiny, male version of Rose?
    Josh looked at his wife, holding a cup of coffee, her feet tucked up on the couch. Her eyes were distant, lost in thought. He loved looking at her when she didn’t know he was looking. There was a tension that appeared around her mouth when she knew she was being observed.
    God, she is lovely.
    Josh wanted to take her upstairs right now. Slip his hands up the soft cotton of her T-shirt. Pull at the waistband of his pajama bottoms, the ones she was wearing and had claimed for her own.
    Josh saw none of the ugliness Rose saw in herself. She was to him the perfect Rose. His Rose. His beautiful, single, blooming Rose.
    He got up from the floor and kissed her. Soft and sweet. Chaste enough for the kids to see.
    When he pulled away, she smiled at him. Distracted still, but appreciative of the gesture. He sat next to her, breathing in the smell of coffee and the tangy scent of her neck. “What are you thinking about?”
    Rose’s eyes sharpened. Finally with him, instead of the somewhere else she had been in the reaches of her mind.
    â€œNothing … I’m not thinking of anything.” She chirped, “Should I make more coffee?”
    *   *   *
    Over the next week, Rose’s mind boiled with the man from the drive-through. She made detailed lists of the things about him that were not Hugo: the cheap plastic glasses, the soft cup of a double chin, the thin peaks of hair on his forehead. In her dreams Hugo’s eyes were perfect, able to see the herds of Bucks moving through the saw grass at a distance. And his jaw was firm. And his hair was full, shiny as it picked up in the breeze. The man in the window was nothing like Hugo.
    But still …
    His eyes had the same chocolate hue. His smile the same crooked shape. The plane of his nose the same angle.
    The man looked like Hugo in disguise. Hiding the real him beneath a poly-blend shirt and the fledgling inner tube of male middle age.
    Rose felt the way she had felt at her high school reunion, witnessing the decline of the beauty of youth. The faded jocks and wrinkled princesses. This man was as alike to Hugo as all those people were to their youthful counterparts. And like those strangely familiar grown-ups, this man looked like the Hugo she knew, but worn. Hugo without the gleam of the man in her dreams.
    Rose tried to put him out of her mind. Concentrated on the immediate tasks of her life. Doing the laundry. Cleaning the car. Dropping the kids off at school.
    But the man from the drive-through bubbled to the surface even during these menial tasks. He was everywhere. He was a french fry crushed into the upholstery of Penny’s