"Wasn't it?"
"Maybe I was just trying to fix a roof that needed fixing."
"With your own hands? When you could have hired workers?"
"Hired workers wouldn't have meant anything."
"And your bleeding hands do?"
"They mean I'm trying."
"Trying to what?"
"To be worthy of forgiveness. To be the kind of man who stays and helps instead of leaving others to handle problems. To be someone you might trust again."
She finished wrapping his hands in clean bandages, but didn't let go immediately. They sat there in the warm kitchen, her hands holding his bandaged ones, neither speaking.
"I want to forgive you," she said finally. "I think about it constantly. Every time I see you helping someone in the village, every time you make Thomas laugh, every time you look at me like you're looking at me now."
"How am I looking at you?"
"Like you're starving and I'm bread."
"That's a terrible metaphor for a bakery."
"I'm a baker, not a poet."
"You could be both."
"I could be many things. But right now, I'm just confused."
"About what?"
"About you. About us. About whether there even is an us or if I'm imagining something that was never really there."
"It was there. It is there."
"Based on what? Four days of lies?"
"Based on the truth underneath the lies. Based on the way we fit together when we're not thinking about it. Based on the way you're still holding my hands even though you finished bandaging them five minutes ago."
She looked down, seeming surprised to find she was indeed still holding his hands. But she didn't let go.
"I kneaded twelve batches of dough this morning," she said, seemingly changing the subject. "That's twice my normal amount."
"Why?"
"Because kneading helps me think. The rhythm of it, the repetition. It's meditative."
"What were you thinking about?"
"You. This. Whether I'm being foolish to even consider trusting you again."
"And what conclusion did you reach?"
"That bread is simpler than people. Bread follows rules. Add ingredients, apply technique, get predictable results. People are chaos pretending to be order."
"Is that what I am? Chaos?"
