She turned and found me directly behind her. Her eyes went straight to my side.
"That," she said, "was a high shelf."
"I was careful."
"You are the worst patient I have ever had in my life."
Something crossed her face then, not the exasperation but something under it, there and gone before she put the rest back.
"But thank you," she added, her voice gone quiet.
"I can reach things." I stepped back. "While I'm here."
"So noted," she said, and went back to the kitchen at a pace that was almost not hurried.
SHE CAME OUT TO THEporch mid-afternoon with two water glasses and caught me crouched at the loose board.
"I see you," she said.
"Twenty-minute fix. I'm not lifting anything."
"There are two boards."
"Forty minutes."
"You are not fixing either of them." She handed me a glass and took the other chair. "You pull at those stitches, you'll land back in a hospital bed with paperwork I don't want to file."
She settled back. "How long has it been since you've sat still for a full day?"
"Define full."
"Without a route to run or a problem to solve."
I thought about it honestly. "Can't place it."
She nodded.
"Good thing I found the right porch," I said.
The dry look came over the rim of her glass. "I volunteered to drive you here. Don't push your luck."
"Sweetheart," I said, "luck has nothing to do with it."
She looked out at the yard. The smile got halfway there before she caught it.
SHE WAS AT THE STOVEwhen I came in from the porch, the kitchen going orange with the last light through the window. She'd changed into jeans sometime in the afternoon, which had helped exactly nothing.
I found plates in the second cabinet I tried, poured a beer for me and the last of a bottle of white wine for her, and set the table. She brought the food over, chicken and rice and a few things from the refrigerator that had come together better than they had any right to, and we sat across from each other.
The conversation went easy, the kind of easy that was its own kind of problem, because easy wasn't a word I usually reached for and I'd been reaching for it all day.
"This is nice," I said.
She set her fork down.
"Shannon," she said.
Calm as anything. Holding my gaze.
