“You wrangled the boiler with me until supper,” I remind her. “You’ve done more than enough already.”
“But that was yesterday.”
“You were rubbing your shoulder all morning. You have dark circles under your eyes, and you’re crankier than you have been since you got here. Usefulness isn’t a sport you win by collapsing first.”
“I know that in theory.”
“Try it in practice.”
She shifts again, blanket settling, springs complaining like old knees. She taps the book against her thigh. It’s an old romance novel, judging by the cover art of a hero with his shirt half torn open. But even that doesn’t seem to capture her interest.
“In my world,” she says, “rest is what comes after you failed to push through. It’s the red mark on the page.”
“In my world,” I say, “rest’s how you keep your hands. And your balance. And your temper.”
I know it because I have to. Pain’s a constant; there’s no cure, no clean slate, only management. I take the medicine and the achehoney when I need to. I take the breaks when my joints demand it. Push too far, and I’m benched for days, magic or not.
“Learn the rhythm early, Hart. It saves you a lot of broken things later.”
She goes quiet. She doesn’t like it, but she lets the chair hold her. I reach for the replacement bulb in my back pocket, and of course, it’s rolled to the far side of the top step where my fingers can’t safely reach it.
I mutter a word I shouldn’t use in a parlor and shift my weight to come down a rung.
The ladder shivers. That’s my fault. My boot scuffs. Also, my fault.
Then something small and unhurried happens. The bulb rolls back toward me, like someone tilted the floor a fraction. It bumps to a stop against the toe of my boot. I hook it with two fingers and bring it to the socket.
“Show-off,” I tell the house.
Elsie pretends to read, eyes glued to the page like she’s auditioning for the part of Someone Who Doesn’t Care. I don’t buy it for a second.
I thread the bulb in, wipe plaster dust on my sleeve, and climb down. The ladder lands solidly. Lemon oil, wool, faint old-house warmth. It’s ten in the morning, and even the house seems to be waiting for what’s coming next.
Elsie’s got her chin propped on her fist. “I should be grateful I’m allowed the time to relax, but God, this is boring.”
“You’re just restless,” I say.
“I’d rather not be this way.”
“What way? A pain in my ass?”
“No,” she mutters. “Overworked and brittle. A person whose whole personality is—was—her calendar. After the sale goes through, I’m going to truly rest for a while. I mean it.”
My jaw goes tight. She had to go and bring up the sale.
“Must be nice,” I say to the ceiling.
She lowers her book a fraction. “You have a problem with me wanting to rest?”
“I have a problem with you talking about selling the place like it’s a done deal.”
She tilts her head. “It is a done deal.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Wells.”
“Elsie.”
