"Your dad."
"Another night."
"Another night."
"Yes."
"Max."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"Stop thanking me."
"No."
She laughs. It is a real laugh. The first real laugh I have heard out of her. It is small and a little cracked and it vibrates against my cheek where it rests against her chest.
"Okay," she says. "You're welcome."
"You're welcome, Evangeline."
"You're welcome, Evangeline."
I find the strap at her hip with my hand. I slide a finger under the leather. She lets me. The leather is warm. I feel where it presses into her skin. I feel the buckle where she cinched it for me. It has a mark on the leather where she has cinched it this tight before, the same notch worn dark. I run my thumb over the worn place. I think about her putting this on in a bathroom minutes before she walked into my room, looking at her own face in the mirror before she came to me.
"You thought about me in the bathroom mirror before you came through to me. When I was waiting in bed,” I say.
"Yes."
"What did you think."
"I thought, I'm going to do this right."
"And."
"And I am not going to let this woman ever be touched the way she has been touched before."
I close my eyes. The sob comes back up in my throat and I press my face into her shoulder. She holds the back of my head with her broad hand. She lets me cry into her collarbone. She does not shush me this time. She lets me have it. The rain on the cedar, the stove in the next room, her hand in my hair, her heartbeat under my cheek.
"I know," she says, quiet. "I know."
The rain comes down. The stove ticks. She rests her chin on the top of my head and I close my eyes with my face on her throat, and the pale band on my finger under her hand is gone now, has been gone for a day, will be gone the rest of my life,and I do not need a word for what I am feeling anymore, because what I am feeling is in my whole body at once, and the word is a small late thing next to it.
11
MAX
Five a.m.
I leave the cabin while she is still asleep. I leave her a note under the french press because I left her a note under the french press.Stew in the fridge. Eggs. Bread. I'll be in by seven.I sign it. I didn't sign yesterday's. I sign this one.M.I put the note down. I stand at the counter and I look at the single letter I have put on the paper and I think about how small it is and how much it has in it.
I drive down the county road in the dark.
The headlights cut the pines. The heater is loud. The radio I don't turn on. I have a travel cup of coffee in the holder between the seats, which I made from the beans I ground yesterday. The coffee is good. I drink it. I drive.
I am thinking about her.
