Page 38 of Same Difference
Delta inhaled deeply. “You are invited in for starting fires only.”
He strode across the squeaking floors and knelt by the small pile of wood she’d hauled in here from the pile he’d stacked outside. There was a stack of ancient newspapers nearby, and he balled some up. The paper sounded old and crinkly. He took a small axe near the wood and chopped little slivers right off the edges of one of the logs. He did it again and again with such precision, barely missing his hand each time.
“Like this,” he said, showing her how to set the small pieces with the paper. “Where are the matches? I had them in the endside table drawer when I left the furniture outside earlier. Are they still there?”
She made her way to the single end table she’d placed beside the couch and opened the drawer. Inside was a big box of matches, her jewelry box, and an upside-down picture frame.
She pulled that out and looked at it, but it still had the picture of the store couple with the price tag on the glass.
She didn’t know what she had expected and also didn’t know why she felt disappointment swirling inside of her chest.
“I thought maybe you would want it for something,” he explained. “I don’t know. I just saw it in storage and thought you could print a picture and hang it up or something.”
“What kind of picture would you like me to print?” she asked.
Still kneeling by the wood stove, Nathan shook his head slightly. “I have no right to say. This is your den.” There was a somberness in his glowing eyes that she didn’t understand.
This was what he had wanted.
Delta handed him the box of matches, and he struck one against the rough side. A tiny flame flared to life, and he held it into the organized pile of kindling he’d made. The fire caught, and he fed the flames with wooden pieces that were a little bit bigger. And a little bigger, and a little bigger until he fed two full sized logs in there and shut the door. He tinkered with the metal pipe that extended from the stove to the roof, and then turned, and looked around the room. His eyes lit on the couch, and the coffee table, and the end table with the still-open drawer. He looked into the kitchen at the cluttered counters, still littered with half emptied grocery bags from earlier. There were piles of debris in the corners, but she would tidy those up tomorrow, when she had the time. Her bedding was sitting in a neatly folded pile on the only standing rickety dining chair. The otherswere in splinters in the corner, and the table had probably been long-ago used for firewood.
The floors were still filthy, and the rafters still adorned with cobweb décor.
She loved it.
“This place isn’t good enough for you,” Nathan said softly.
She pursed her lips into a smile. “You can’t mean that. It’s at rock bottom, but it can improve. I belong.”
“It’s dirty.”
“I think you have trouble seeing potential,” she whispered. And no, she wasn’t talking about the cabin.
From the look on his face, she thought he heard her loud and clear.
He checked the fire once more and held out his hands to catch some of the heat coming off it.
“Cold?” she asked.
“Trying to imagine leaving you here when I knowyoucould be cold.”
“I’m not. In fact, I’m hot.”
He stood and turned, glanced at the gooseflesh on her legs, and then leveled her with a gaze. “Want me to help you make the bed?”
It was the sweetest thing he’d ever offered. This felt dangerous. It felt like she was crossing a line as she nodded ‘yes.’
She moved to help, but he gestured to the recliner he’d dropped off for her that sat in the corner. “Let me. Please.”
Stunned, she sank down into the recliner gingerly and watched as he pulled the bed from the couch, and carefully put the fitted sheet on it, then the sheets, then the comforter. He put the two pillows he’d dropped earlier onto the bed and then folded down the corner of the bedding and gave her a half smile. “I feel better.”
She couldn’t help her smile. He was going to make a great mate someday to someone else. Someone he actually cared deeply for. For her, she knew what this was. It was guilt mixed with relief that they were done. It was a pressure taken off his shoulders. It was no promises, and no future.
It was friendship and understanding as they began the process of moving forward, and for that, she was grateful. He could’ve just left and ignored her for a year, moved on in front of her immediately, and rubbed it in her face. He could’ve hurt her more, but he was being kind instead.
This tenderness was his ‘thank you’ for her ending his suffering.
“Do you want me to tuck you in?”
