Page 118 of Book and Ladder
Her shoulder brushes mine as she does.
Not how I pictured this morning going.
I make the mistake of turning to look at her. We’re too close. She’s sleep rumpled, giving her a certain irresistible vulnerability. She stares back into my eyes.
“Won’t the gas asphyxiate us if we leave it running?” she asks.
“Um.” I practically stutter. “Yes. Right.”
I light the wand lighter and connect the flame to the pilot.
“I wanted to do that,” Daisy says.
“You’re doing the important part of the job,” I tell her.
“You sound like you’re talking to Boston and Ariella.”
The ease with which my nieces’ names roll off her tongue warms me. A sign of how interwoven our lives have been all these years. I know her. And she knows me. Maybe, with any luck—if I don’t blow it—we’ll build on that foundation. “Keep holding it,” I tell her. “Thermocouple needs thirty seconds.”
“Thermocouple? Are you making this up as you go along?”
“Usually.”
Her laugh crinkles the corners of her eyes. For one heartbeat she’s open. And then she shakes her head and fixes her attention back on the task at hand—her task, getting the water to heat.
My task spans morethan fixing her shower, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Now release the knob,” I say. “If the flame stays, turn it toon.”
She does, watching the blue light flare. “You really know your way around a water heater,” she murmurs.
“It’s lit,” I tell her, pretending not to read subtext into her words.
I return the lighter to its drawer. “You’re good to go.”
She pops her cup into the microwave, pink robe brushing the backs of her thighs, hair mussed, face void of makeup. She’s beautiful.
“Thanks, Patrick,” she says over her shoulder.
“I’ll just let myself out.”
Neither of us says another word, but she follows me into the foyer.
My phone buzzes. I make the mistake of checking it.
Dad:Reminder. Property walk in thirty.
Daisy peers at the screen over my shoulder and steps back. The light in her eyes shutters. The drawbridge rises. I almost hear the clang, clang, clang of the chain, the slam of the massive wood doors, the thud of the drawbar, securing every point of access.
I pocket my cell, the silence stretching between us until Ican’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound like an apology or excuse.
On the drive to the Home Mart site, our morning lingers with me—the smell of coffee—of her—the brown waves of her hair loose over one shoulder. What it could have been like if I hadn’t messed things up so royally over the years. We might even be sharing a water heater by now.
The road crests a hill. Moss and Maple comes into view—perched on its slope like a child waiting after school, forgotten and small.
I park at the edge of the clearing and climb out of my car. I’m stopped in my tracks when I look around. The land is cleared and raw. Dirt where there was once grass. Roots exposed, air smelling like diesel and dust.
And inexplicable anger rises up in me—tight, hot, overpowering. My fists clench at my sides. I grind my jaw.
