Page 52 of The Fixer and the Fugitive

Celeste let out a little breath, staring at the dark abyss of her coffee. “I wish everyone felt that way. Other women don’t like me.”

“Because you’re pretty?” Esther guessed.

“No. I guess they probably had good reason. Back in the day I had a well-earned reputation as a man-eater. Men who were taken were sort of my preferred delicacy.”

“Don’t you find it a bid odd when women blame the other woman in that scenario instead of their significant other? If a man is truly committed, he can’t be taken. Personally I’d be more worried about any man who’d let himself be distracted to that degree.Acrasia,a lack of self-control.”

“That’s a good point, and a testament to your maturity as a woman. But also, I was predatory.”

“I can’t help but notice your repeated use of the past tense,” Esther said.

“It’s been a long time. When The Colonel recruited me, I decided to turn over a new leaf.”

“It would seem you have. Look at you, a homeowner and bread maker with money in the bank and a man who, even to someone who is bad at reading context clues, obviously adores you.”

“He doesn’t know me. Not really,” Celeste said.

“Let him.”

Celeste shook her head. “I can’t. You know what’s in my file, and that’s bad enough. If you knew all that’s unwritten…”

“What? Do you think I wouldn’t like you anymore? That I might run away because you’re so unclean I can’t stand to be in the same room with you?”

Celeste didn’t reply, but she swallowed hard.

“Celeste, when I look at you I seeprobity, integrity and uprightness. Honesty. A woman who spent fifteen yearsdoing an impossible job few people in the world could even contemplate.”

“I appreciate that, so much. And I’m trying hard to believe it. But when you spend the first eighteen years of your life being told the opposite, the competing voices get a little confusing. I haven’t yet figured out a way to drown out the first one. But I’m trying.”

“That’s all any of us can do,” Esther assured her. “Sometimes people are blessed with an amazing family and system of support and sometimes you have to seek it yourself, to make your own community. I fell in the first category. I was sheltered, so Leo was my first exposure to people who were alone in the world. Since then I’ve met a lot more people like you and him, enough to make me realize the people in the second category far outnumber the people in the first. And do you know what’s amazing to me?”

She paused. Celeste shook her head, unable to fathom.

“People who are broken and hurting so often go into the kind of work you and Leo did. They become the helpers—soldiers, policemen, nurses, firefighters, and EMTs. Because they want to help other people like them. Despite everything, despite all the pain, you have these great big hearts, filled with care and compassion, hoping to make the world a better place than the one you sprang from. That’s a miracle. And youdomake the world a better place, Celeste. Don’t let yourself believe otherwise. And maybe now that you’ve retired you’ll have time to make the community you never had and always wanted.”

Celeste didn’t know what to say. It was like Esther opened a bottle of healing salve and dumped it all over her wounded pieces. No one had ever said anything so kind and gentle and encouraging to her before. At last she took a shuddering breath and spoke. “If Leo ever becomes stupid enough to let you go, I will literally kill him.”

“Get in line behind this pacifist,” Esther said, tipping her mug to Celeste in a little toast.

Together, they finished their coffee in companionable silence.

By the time the men returned from the barn, the bread was in the oven and it was time for Esther and Leo to fly home.

“Did you get everything fixed?” Celeste asked.

“Yes, if by ‘fixed’ you mean we gave up immediately and threw rocks at old tin cans instead,” Sam said. “It smells edible in here. What sorcery is this?”

“I have made bread,” Celeste announced.

“You are very talented,” Sam replied, tugging the hem of her shirt.

“She is,” Esther agreed. “My star pupil, for certain.”

“Also your first and only?” Celeste guessed.

“Don’t get caught up in the details,” Esther replied, snaking her arm through Leo’s. He gave her a squeeze and kissed the top of her head.

“Is it weird how much I’m going to miss you guys? Can’t you come live here? Communes are coming back in style, I think,” Celeste said.

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