“Jolly,” he whispered. “Like Santa.”
“Yes.” I squeezed his shoulder. “So let’s make sure nothing happens to the fence, okay?”
He nodded, still looking down at his feet. “Because Jolly.”
“Right.” I turned to Ben. “We’ll be sure not to break anything.”
“Thank you.”
Two words. We were back to two words.
“Nice to meet you, Ben.”
He gave a single nod. Then picked up the hammer.
I stepped down from the crate, took William’s hand, and walked back toward the house. Behind us, the hammering resumed—steady, precise, already done with us.
“Mom?” William tugged my hand as we reached the back door. “Is Jolly nice?”
The question came out careful, almost hopeful, and something about it snagged in my chest.
“I don’t know, buddy. He’s actually a police K9 dog, so I’m not sure. We’d have to ask Mr. Ben.”
“Oh.” He turned the word over like he was examining it for more information. Then he went inside to find his cereal, and I stood on the deck for a moment longer, listening to the sound of a hammer driving nails into wood that was already perfectly set.
I went back to the kitchen table. Back to my coffee, which had gone cold. Back to the Barley sketches.
I was annoyed. That was the dominant feeling—at having my Saturday hijacked, at standing on a crate in my pajamas making conversation with someone who clearly had no interest in being conversed with, at being told my son had broken something he hadn’t broken. Maybe.
I picked up my pencil. Set it down again.
The image that kept surfacing wasn’t the argument about the fence. It was the moment when Ben opened his back door—his hand dropping to the dog’s head, the low voice I couldn’t hear, the way his entire face had changed for that one unguarded second. The tenderness in it. How quickly it had disappeared when he’d turned back to me, locked down again, all that warmth sealed behind a face that gave nothing away.
I didn’t want to be thinking about that. I wanted to be thinking about the fence or the accusation or the fact that my quiet Saturday was ruined.
Anything that kept me in the category ofannoyedrather than whatever this was—this low, unwelcome hum of awareness that I hadn’t felt in a long time and wasn’t sure I wanted to feel again.
I picked up the pencil and resumed working on Barley’s eyes. The softening around the lids, the angle of the gaze. That quality of steady, unguarded attention I’d been chasing for days.
It still wasn’t right. Close—closer than before, maybe—but whatever I was reaching for kept slipping just out of range, like a word on the tip of my tongue that wouldn’t come.
I set down the pencil and went to reheat my coffee.
William was at the kitchen table now, eating cereal, his feet swinging under the chair. He watched me put my mug in the microwave and press the button.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
“I’ll be really careful with the fence. I won’t break it.”
Something about the way he said it—earnest, unprompted, like he’d been rehearsing it while he poured his cereal—made me turn around and look at him.
“I know you won’t.” I leaned against the counter. “ButWilliam, if something did happen to the fence, even by accident, you can tell me. You wouldn’t be in trouble.”
He nodded quickly, eyes on his cereal bowl. “I know.”
“I mean it. Even if it’s complicated.”
