Page 29 of Brash for It
He shrugs, a big-shouldered, nonchalant thing that doesn’t match the size of what he’s handing me.“You don’t have to take it.There are more than a hundred other places.But if you want a place to sit where your next thing has fewer teeth to chew you up, I can give you a chair, a phone, and a stack of forms.”
A laugh breaks out of me, startling and bright.“I can handle forms.”
“I figured.”He sits back, studies me like he’s checking my pulse.Satisfied, he nods once.“Thursday morning.Nine.If you show, then I’ll put you to work.If you don’t, no one’s hunting you down to make you explain yourself.”
The ease of it, theif/thensimplicity, soothes a place in me that is raw and tired of negotiating invisible tests.“I’ll show.”
“Okay.”He stands moving to the sink with his dish.He sets his empty bowl in the sink and runs water not because dishes can’t sit for ten minutes, but because his hands like doing things.Mine do too, it turns out.I stand, take the sponge, and scrub.He doesn’t stop me.He doesn’t praise me for washing a plate like I’m a child.We do the dishes like two humans who made a mess and trust each other to help clean it.
When we’re done, the house feels lighter.Maybe it’s me.Maybe it’s the way tasks stack inside my chest like bricks instead of boulders with Kellum.
“Tell me about your parents,” he inquires suddenly, not looking at me, which is merciful.He keeps his body angled toward the counter, as if he asked a question into a mirror as we move back to the table because we’ve finished the dishes.
“My parents?”I take a breath that tastes like dish soap and humid evening.“They were good people.Kind.We lived in Delaware.Typical suburb life.My dad taught high school history and my mom ran the library like it was the beating heart of everything.Books made her happy.Summers we drove out to the beach and ate terrible fried shrimp on paper plates and my mom would read mystery novels in a cheap plastic chair she brought from home because she said rental chairs were for people who didn’t plan.Later, I figured out it was because they charged for rental chairs and the trip to the beach took everything they saved for the entire year to get us there.The extra wasn’t worth it to her so I could have ice cream or other extra treats.They would have hated Brian if they had gotten to know him.”The truth makes me smile for the first time without that tight ache.“They would have asked him what he was reading and he would have tried to lie to sound sophisticated and they would have seen through him in ways I couldn’t.”
“When’d they go?”he asks genuinely carrying this conversation.
“Four almost five years ago.A drunk driver.”The words don’t scrape skin off the way they used to.Maybe the scar is finally blending into my heart a little.“I got the call on a Tuesday.I flew home from college.Handled things at the funeral home, and learned quickly what being an adult was like when the mortgage payment came in and I couldn’t pay it.After negotiating with the bank, the house went up for a quick sale and the little profit there was, I kept myself afloat at school.I never let myself look back.”I shrug one shoulder.“Brian liked broken things.They made him feel necessary, I think because he liked me broken.”
“People like that don’t want to fix you,” he states casually “They need you to be broken so they can manipulate the situation to their benefit.”
“Yeah.”The word lands bitter and sweet.“I wanted to belong to someone.It felt like love.”
He doesn’t tell me it wasn’t.He doesn’t have to.The silence is honest between us.
“Tomorrow,” he states finally.“PO box.Shop.We’ll see about the rest when we get there.”
“Okay.”I run my thumb over the edge of the notebook.“Thank you.”
He nods like we made a deal.I guess we did except there isn’t anything in it for him.
Later, after we’ve both showered and the day has leaned itself fully into dark, I take the notebook to bed like a child with a treasure.I lay it on the nightstand and slide under the sheet.I leave a foot of space between us because tonight I want to see if I can sleep without being held like a drowning person.I need to fix myself this time, not have someone catch me because I’ve fallen.My body hums with tired that feels like I might be able to do this.
“If you’re done with writing, light out okay.”he requests, already half on his back, one arm thrown up, relaxed in the way only he does.
“Yeah.”I click the lamp off because it’s on my side.The room glows faint-blue from the streetlight outside.The security light hums.The world is ordinary and it feels like a miracle.
“Kristen,” he mutters into the near-dark.
“Yeah?”
“You did good today.”
My throat closes.I stare at the ceiling and pretend I’m not absorbing the words like the last drop of water in a canteen.“Thanks,” I whisper.
He grunts, which meansyou’re welcome,and turns a little toward me.I don’t slide onto his chest even though I want to.My hands fold on my stomach like prayer.I wonder for a moment if he’s going to pull me into him, but he doesn’t.I guess he reads my body language.Sleep comes eventually, not as easy, but I do manage to get there on my own.
Doing things on my own, that encompasses all of the next things.Yes, Kellum is right.I did good.
Eight
Kristen
The next morning,I wake before the alarm I didn’t set.Habit, fear—who knows why, but I’m up.Dawn is a pale smear along the blinds.Somewhere a dog barks and then gives up.The air conditioner sighs and then is quiet, leaving just the hum of the refrigerator.
Kellum isn’t in bed.The dent where he slept holds his shape like memory.The smell of coffee floats down the hall, and I follow it with the notebook tucked under my arm and my hair pulled into a messy knot using one of the elastics I bought with so much ceremony.
He’s at the table with two mugs and a small stack of mail.A key sits next to one mug.Not the front door key—smaller, brass, with a number stamped into it.He nudges it with his knuckle when I sit.“PO box key,” he explains.“Already rented it when they opened this morning.Box number’s on the tag.You have an address today.”
