Chương 11
That sentence sat between us.
I knew enough about shame to leave it alone.
After a while, she asked, “Did you ever want kids?”
I looked at her.
“That’s personal.”
She nodded immediately.
“Sorry.”
I stared at my coffee.
Then I said, “Once.”
Her eyes lifted.
“It didn’t work out.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Most people don’t.”
“With who?”
“Daniel.”
“The architect?”
“You remember him?”
“You dated him for four years.”
“Three and a half.”
“What happened?”
I looked toward the dark window.
The answer had nothing to do with the house.
That was probably why it came out.
“We wanted different versions of the future.”
Kelsey waited.
I appreciated that she did not ask for details.
I gave her one anyway.
“He wanted me to quit when we had children.”
She grimaced.
“Yeah.”
“That was also my response.”
She smiled faintly.
“And after him?”
“I stopped making plans around hypothetical people.”
Her face softened.
I hated it.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve discovered I have organs.”
She laughed.
Then her phone buzzed.
A message from Ryan appeared.
ARE YOU COMING BACK?
Kelsey read it.
Her expression tightened.
“I should go.”
I nodded.
She stood and picked up her mug.
“Leave it.”
“I can wash a cup.”
“I know.”
She washed it anyway.
At the door, she paused.
“Thirty days.”
“Yes.”
“If I need less?”
“Even better.”
“If I need more?”
I looked at her.
She nodded before I answered.
“Right.”
Then she stepped outside.
I watched her cross the yard toward the carriage house.
The lights inside were still on.
Ryan appeared briefly behind one of the curtains.
Kelsey went in.
The door closed.
I went upstairs with a blanket and slept on my mattress on the floor.
At six thirty the next morning, a drill started in the garage.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.
The drill stopped.
Then started again.
Then something metal crashed.
I pulled on a sweatshirt and went downstairs.
Ryan was kneeling beside the shelving unit with the instruction sheet upside down.
“You know it’s Sunday.”
He looked up.
“You said tomorrow.”
“I did.”
“So here I am.”
I turned the instruction sheet around.
He looked at it.
“That explains some things.”
I handed it back.
He smiled.
His eyes were swollen.
“How did it go?”
The smile vanished.
“Bad.”
I leaned against the doorframe.
“Kelsey found another card.”
“I know.”
He looked surprised.
“She came over.”
He nodded slowly.
“I forgot about it.”
“You forgot about a credit card?”
“It was a store card.”
“That does not improve the sentence.”
“I know.”
He tightened a bolt.
“She said she wants a financial counselor.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“And separate accounts.”
“That also sounds reasonable.”
“And she wants me to sign something saying I won’t open anything in her name.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds extremely reasonable.”
He tightened the bolt harder than necessary.
“She also said she might leave.”
There it was.
I sat on the step leading into the garage.
Ryan kept working.
After a minute, he said, “You were right.”
“About what?”
“I kept avoiding the last consequence until I made the next one worse.”
I watched him align two metal brackets.
“Knowing that doesn’t fix it.”
“I know.”
He picked up another screw.
“But I think maybe it tells me what not to do next.”
For once, he did not sound like someone asking to be rescued.
He sounded like someone discovering the distance between regret and repair.
By eight, one side of the shelving unit stood upright and Ryan had already installed the second crossbar backward.
I pointed at it.
He looked at the instructions, then at the shelf, then at me.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
“I work in logistics.”
“You work in medical logistics.”
“Backward is backward in every industry.”
He unscrewed the bar without arguing.
That was new too.
Dad arrived twenty minutes later carrying a paper bag of breakfast sandwiches, two coffees, a plastic container of spackle, and enough tools to suggest he had misunderstood the assignment.
Ryan looked toward the driveway.
“Why does he have a level that long?”
“Compensation.”
Dad heard me through the open garage door.
“I heard that.”
Ryan laughed.
Dad stepped inside and inspected the half-built shelving.
“You put the brace on backward.”
Ryan stared at him.
“I fixed it.”
“Looks like you stripped one of the screws.”
“Good morning, Dad.”
Dad handed him a breakfast sandwich.
“Egg and sausage.”
Ryan took it.
“You remembered.”
“Of course.”
I watched the exchange and felt the old familiar pinch.
Then Dad held out another bag toward me.
“Egg white, cheddar, no meat.”
I blinked.
“You remembered?”
He gave me a strange look.
“You’ve ordered the same thing since college.”
The pinch changed.
It did not disappear.
It simply became less certain of itself.
I took the sandwich.
“Thanks.”
Dad nodded toward the house.
“Show me the wall.”
I led him inside.
The gouge near the stair rail looked worse in morning light.
He crouched beside it, ran one thumb along the damaged paint, and made a small sound of judgment.
“What?”
I asked.
“Cheap patch job underneath.”
“The house is a hundred years old.”
“Doesn’t mean people have to be animals.”
He opened the spackle.
I sat on the bottom stair eating my sandwich while he worked.
For several minutes, we talked about nothing important.
He complained about the hardware store rearranging its aisles.
I told him the dishwasher sounded like it contained a trapped squirrel.
He said every dishwasher made after 2015 was designed by people who hated silence.
Then he glanced toward the garage.
“How bad is the money?”
I stopped chewing.
“What did Ryan tell you?”
“Not much.”
“Then ask him.”
Dad smoothed spackle over the gouge.
“That serious?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
His shoulders seemed to settle lower.
“Your mother said there was a card problem.”
“There is more than a card problem.”
May you like
Dad stopped moving.
I immediately regretted saying anything.
