I counted the windows on the front of the house.
Four. Plus a small one over the porch — bathroom, probably. And a single window high in the gable above the garage. That window was lit. The rest of the house was not.
The garage was the small building she had pointed at this morning, set back ten feet from the main house, with side stairs running up the right edge to a door at the top. The lit gable window was right next to the door. The light was warm. A single bulb, maybe, behind a curtain.
I picked up my phone. No new messages. Maddox had texted at noon —Sue gave me her keys, swing by the rink beforepractice tomorrow, get your jersey— and that was it. No one else needed me for anything.
I had made it to age thirty-two and the people who needed me for anything in a given day fit on a screen the size of my palm.
I cut the heater. Got out.
The cold hit me in the chest and went straight to my shoulders, where it always went. I had picked my coat for tonight on purpose — the long one, the one my agent had bought me after Caleb’s funeral, the one I had not worn out of the apartment in two years. I needed pockets. I needed weight. I needed to feel held.
The duffels were heavy because I had packed them as if I might never come back to them. Hockey bag, two duffels, a small wooden box wrapped in my old practice jersey. I looked at the load. Counted the trips. Two if I was efficient. One and a half if I was strong.
The front door of the house opened.
Maple Sutton came out wearing a wool coat over her diner apron and a pair of heavy boots she had not laced properly. Her hair was coming out of the same braid it had been coming out of this morning. She stopped on the bottom step of the porch and pulled a set of keys out of her coat pocket like she was handing over a weapon.
“You’re early,” she said.
“I said five.”
“I expected six.”
“Your fault for hoping.”
Her mouth did something. I did not name it. Something in the corner. Something that might have been a smile if she’d let it be.
She walked the keys across the gap between us and held them out. I took them. The metal was warm — she had been holding them. I did not say anything about that, about the care she wastaking, about the fact that she’d been waiting and watching for me to arrive.
“Side stairs,” she said, pointing. “Don’t use the front porch unless I call you. There’s a key for the side door of the garage on that ring too — that one’s only for the breaker box if the power goes out. Don’t go in the garage otherwise.”
“Understood.”
“The apartment door is the brass one. The deadbolt sticks if you turn it the wrong way. You have to lift up while you turn. Like this.” She made a small motion with her wrist. The gesture was careful. Instructional.
I copied it back to her. She nodded.
“Heater’s in the bedroom. Don’t run the kitchen one — the wiring is original and I haven’t had it inspected in three years. Propane line for the stove runs behind the wall to my grandmother’s workbench. There’s a shutoff valve next to the fridge if it ever smells funny.”
“Funny how.”
“Sweet. Like rotten eggs but sweeter.”
“Got it.”
“There’s a number list on the fridge. That’s the propane company at the top. My number’s below it. Heather Park is below mine — that’s Theo Junior’s mother — she watches the place when I’m at the diner past closing — and below her is the police non-emergency line, which I have never used in seven years.”
“Maple.”
She stopped. Looked at me. Her eyes were hazel. I had not registered that this morning. They had hazel in them, and uncertainty.
“I am not going to burn your house down.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m just nervous.”
She had not meant to say that. I could see it in her face the second the words were out. She closed her mouth and tried to take it back by looking somewhere else.
