He parks in the driveway this time.Climbs out slower, like he’s decided there’s no rush—he knew I’d call.Of course he did.He seems like the type to know exactly how long things take to fall apart.
He comes up the walk with his toolbox in one hand and that same steady gait, like nothing in the world surprises him anymore.He looks at me, at my ankle, at the step.
“Hi,” I say, because I don’t know what else to do.
“Damn,” he says.“Probably need an x-ray for that.”
He sets the toolbox down and kneels to inspect the board, fingers pressing into the crack like a doctor checking a pulse.His hands are big, capable, nicked in a few places with old scars.
He could fix this house.
He could take it apart.
He could do the same to a person.
I watch him work—the easy competence in the way he measures, marks, moves—and something under my ribs shifts uneasily.
I always said I’d never be the woman who needed saving.
And yet, here I am.
But at least Charles will be proud.Not right now, of course.
It pains me to think of him, groaning and rolling around down there in the dark.If Luke thinksIneed an x-ray for a tiny sprain, he should see the other guy.
Still, I hope in time Charles will see how everything I did—everything I’vedone—has been for him.For us.
For now, I sit on the porch and let the handyman replace the stairs, the smell of fresh-cut wood curling up around us like some kind of promise neither of us has any business making.
13
Luke
The board splits clean.Old pine.Dry rot.Probably hadn’t been safe in years.
I wedge it free and toss it aside, reaching for the new piece.Marin sits behind me on the porch, holding ice to her ankle like she’s been wounded in combat instead of just stepping wrong.
My knuckles still ache from earlier.Split skin starting to swell where it caught bone.The hammer is beside me, wiped down but not exactly clean.Never really is.
“Let me ask you something,” she says.
I grunt.Noncommittal.I’m lining up the replacement board, checking the level.
“You know anyone around here I could get something from?For the pain.Not, like, a prescription or anything official.Just something under the table.”
I stop.Set down the board.
The timing would be funny if it weren’t so perfectly wrong.
Thirty minutes ago I was explaining to a kid in a tattoo parlor why selling pills was a bad business model.Used the same hammer sitting between us to make the point stick.And here she is, asking me where to score what I just made sure wouldn’t be available anymore.
Timing like that doesn’t happen by accident.Except when it does.
“I sprained my ankle, not my sanity,” she adds, defensive.“And I don’t have time to sit in some waiting room for two hours just to be told to ice it and take Advil.In New York, you’d miss three meetings and probably still leave with a parking ticket.”
“This isn’t New York,” I say.
She scoffs.“Trust me.I noticed.”
