“What nights?” I probed, needing details to hang my nerves on.
“Thursday, Saturday for sure,” he recounted. “Sometimes Sunday. I’ll flash brights twice if I see anything off. You don’t have to look—just know I’m there.”
I slid my thumb under the chain again. The metal warmed to my skin, the ring pressing like another heartbeat. “I keep my door closed.”
“Good,” he confirmed, no extra note in it. “Keep it that way.”
A beat. We both listened to the building settle. The freezer motor cut on, low hum. A pipe tapped as it cooled. Somewhere down the hall, a kid laughed in his sleep—one burst, then quiet. The radio moved into a commercial, then dropped into old Mary J, voice thin through the cheap speaker, still true.
He shifted toward the door. “Anything else before I cut?”
“Saint,” I called, softer than I meant to.
He paused, hand on the knob. He turned half, not enough to push me with his presence. One eyebrow lifted in question.
“Thank you,” I finished. “For groceries. For… the rest.”
“You don’t owe me a speech,” he replied, shoulders easing.
“I know,” I countered. “I wanted to say it.”
His mouth tilted, almost a smile that didn’t show teeth. “Alright then.”
I opened the lock. He stepped into the hallway. The air out there wore wetness and dust. He adjusted his jacket, pulled the collar once, and glanced over my shoulder at the dark room—Bible open, lamp low, baby breathing. He nodded toward the end table. “You reading tonight?”
“Maybe,” I wavered. “Sometimes the words read me back too hard after storms.”
“They still land,” he reminded, voice quiet. “Even when you don’t finish.”
I didn’t answer. My throat closed a notch. He tapped the frame twice, a small signal that meant nothing to anyone but me, then moved down the hall. His boots kept even time on tile: three floors, one door, stairwell.
I shut the door. Turned the lock. Set the chain. Leaned into the wood until it pushed back.
In the front room, the lamp threw a soft spill across the rug. The Bible’s thin pages glowed at the edges. I stood in the doorway and breathed in the house. The wipers out front stopped. The block quieted. The storm loosened its hold.
I picked up the Bible and set it back down. I didn’t need it open to know what I would whisper. My mouth already knew the shape of it. I pressed the ring. “He that dwelleth in the secret place…”
Thunder grumbled weak somewhere else, not ours anymore.
My brain tried to hand me a picture of the grave again—Ro standing at the mouth of the hole, rain slicking his lashes, jawlocked, breath coming out in short, hard bursts. The look he gave me then walked into this room without knocking. The weight of it hit me in the sternum. Three years gone. One glance and everything I built was learning how to shake again.
Back then he burned. Even his quiet burned. He loved in declarations and engine noise and the roll call of birthdays. He had a memory for dates and a mouth that put them in the air like prayers and warnings. Dre. Boo. Tasha. He wore the dead like a vest. He wore me like a brand. When we were right, I felt it in my bones. When we were wrong, my heart took the bruise.
Saint doesn’t bruise me. He sands the edges down. He turns the heat down without touching the dial. That ought to be good. But peace pressed too close to my chest feels like betrayal if I let it sit too long. I don’t know what to do with a quiet that doesn’t demand I earn it.
I checked the chain lock on the door again. I do that when my mind starts running. The metal clicked under my fingers. The sound helped.
I made the circuit I always make when my body won’t calm—kitchen sink off, stove off, fridge closed, counter clear, Bible positioned, diaper bag zipped. Each small order stacked on the last until the room agreed to stand still. I rinsed the rag he folded, wrung it, hung it clean on the oven handle like he did. The line of it made my breathing even.
Aaliyah rustled once. I went to her, pressed my palm to her back. The rise and fall steadied me. She murmured and found her thumb again.Covered.
I moved to the window and parted the blind with two fingers. The SUV out front sat dark now, rain beads sliding down the hood in slow lines. I knew he’d be on the corner in five minutes running a perimeter in his own head. He didn’t announce it. He just did it. He always does.
Across the street, Lopez’s neon beer sign stuttered and held. The sidewalk wore puddles in every cracked square. A stray dog shook water and trotted under the awning of the bodega. Two boys in oversized hoodies jogged by, heads down, shoes slapping wet concrete. The block wasn’t asleep. It was resting.
I let the blind fall and walked back to the table. The list waited. I wrote “garbage bags” under oil and rice, then “bandaids” because Aaliyah’s knees keep finding corners. I added “light bulb” because the hallway flickers and I like to have spares. My handwriting slanted against his. I squared the paper with the counter like he had. It sat better like that.
The radio eased into quiet. DJ Xtra dropped the beat. Then Amerie’s“Why Don’t We Fall in Love”rolled in, summer still trapped in the chords even though the rain tried to drown it. I turned the knob a hair lower and let the beat find the empty spaces between the beeping of the fire alarm.
