Ididn’tcome hereto connect with people who notice or for a man who considers my house his problem.
Still, I linger in the doorway,cold airslipping inaround my ankles, waiting for him to turn back and say one more thing.
He doesn’t.
I huff out a quiet laugh and push off the door, crossing the room to set the Tupperware on the counter.
“He’s just being helpful,” I tell the empty cabin.
And maybe he is.
But helpful shouldn’t feel like something I’m already looking forward to.
Chapter 5
Sullivan
The next nine days are a slow, methodical breach of the system.
Day one: caulk on the casement. Forty-five minutes. I refuse coffee. I refuse a cinnamon roll.
Day two:she’son the woodpile. Wrong end. I stand at my window and watch her try to lift a round of pine that weighs a third of her. Before I know it,I’mback at her cabin, splitting her wood wordlessly while she stands on the porch with two mugs of coffee and tells me about a podcast she heard about salt mining in Polish history.
I take the coffeeand refrain from commenting aboutPolish salt.
She doesn’t stop talking, which appears to be acceptable to her.
Day three: door hinge.
Day four: leak under the kitchen sink, which sheidentifiedby the highly diagnostic method of putting a plastic mixing bowl under it and giving it a name.
Day five, I stay for an hour, only becauseshe’sdecided to refinish a drawer with a piece of sandpaper she found insaiddrawer, and watching her sand gives a manaheadache.
“Like this,”Isay finally, taking the sandpaper.“With the grain. Long strokes, not short, oryou’llpolish yourself a bald spot.”
The words sit between us for a moment that neither of us acknowledges.
“I’m sanding a drawer with religious intensity.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Herhairis tiedup in a kerchief. She has smudges on the back of her hand, her glasses have sawdust on the lenses, and she’s wearing a smile I cannot look at directly.
On day six,she puts a plate down on the porch step before I can leave. Theplate has a sandwich on it, and the sandwich has mustard on it, and I donotwant to know how she figured out thatmustard is my favorite.
“Don’t make a thing of it,” she says.
“Don’t quote me to me.”
“Eat your sandwich, Mercer.”
I eat it on the porch step.
She goes back inside.Likeit’snothing.Like she didn’t figure out the one food I keep in my refrigerator at all times—yellowmustard, not Dijon, not anything with seeds in it—and put it on a sandwich without comment or expectation of credit.
