Not enough to repair everything.
Enough to leave a door unlocked.
CHAPTER 5 – A Place to Stay
The first time Daniel came to my house afterward, I asked him to fix nothing.
He stood on the porch holding a grocery bag and looking past me toward the kitchen, where a cabinet hinge had been crooked for years.
“Dinner,” I said. “Not a rescue mission.”
He nodded.
Inside the bag were potatoes, green beans, and the brand of tea I drank. No flowers. No card with words too large for what we could bear.
We peeled potatoes at opposite sides of the sink.
After a while, he said, “I told myself you were stronger than she was.”
I kept the peeler moving.
“So you could disappoint me instead?”
“Yes.”
A strip of potato skin fell between us.
“That was convenient.”
“It was.”
He set his potato down.
“I used the double shifts in the parking lot like they proved I was a good son for remembering them. But I remembered them when I wrote those messages, too.”
My hands stopped.
He was looking at the sink, not waiting for reassurance.
“I don’t know how to undo being that person.”
“You can’t undo it.”
His eyes shone.
“You can decide what you do next. And then decide again tomorrow.”
We ate at the kitchen table. Once, he began telling me something Vanessa had done, then stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“It explains her. It doesn’t excuse me.”
I passed him the beans.
It was an ordinary gesture. His fingers trembled when he took the bowl.
There were other dinners.
