Page 58 of Soft Flannel Hank

“Come on and have breakfast with us,” Rick called out over Dave’s shoulder.

“I was just leaving,” Hank had said, his gaze fixed on the bottom of his steering wheel, on the worn leather that was shiny and smooth from his hands.

“Oh, come on! Not even a cup of coffee?”

Hank had often wondered how he would feel in just this sort of situation. He’d been so cut off, so lonely, for so long. Sometimes as he rattled around in his empty house in dirty sweatpants and what Magda referred to as his “depression sweatshirt,” he had wondered how he would feel if his old coworkers, his old friends, invited him to visit the fold again. Part of him had always thought he would dive headfirst back into those friendships, desperate for normalcy, for acceptance, for a taste of who he once was.

He was surprised to realize in that moment that he had absolutely no desire to have a cup of coffee with these men, like he’d done hundreds of times before. Rick would flirt harmlessly with the server. Dave would cut up about the fact that Rick couldn’t pay for a date, let alone entice one. They would laugh. They’d drink coffee and talk sports and family and gossip about the station, gossip about the town. Maybe eat. Pay. And then go to work.

Hank had expected to miss that. When he declined again. When he nodded his head as Rick and Dave said they’d be seeing him around soon they hoped. When he pulled out of the parking lot and watched them enter the diner in his rearview mirror. And when he told the whole story to Nadja at therapy. He had expected to miss that. His old life.

But he didn’t.

“Well, it makes sense to me,” Nadja said, her voice rough around the edges from what sounded like a cold. “You’re not the same person you were before you left the force. So you won’t find comfort in the same things now that you did then.”

Hank grunted.

“I think that it’s important for you to consider what it is youdowant now.”

Hank rubbed his hands against the armrests of the chair once before he felt his callouses catch on the linen.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you ever hear from Esther?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh!” Nadja said before she wrestled her surprise under control. “How is she?”

“In my house.”

Nadja choked on her tea, and Hank was two seconds from leaping out of his chair and pounding her on the back when she got herself under control.

“Esther is in your house,” she wheezed, taking another sip of tea. “The last time we spoke, she had left without a word.”

“Yeah, well, now she’s in my house.”

“Why?”

“It’s… complicated.”

Nadja sighed. “Do you want her in your house?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? Two nights ago, when Hank had peeled her off of him and walked away, he would have said, “No. No, Idon’twant her in my house. Ithurtshaving her there.”

This morning, that answer was muddier. Because the truth was that hedidwant her in his house. In his house, in his bed, in his arms. In his life.

Hank sighed, his head hanging. “I’m afraid to want her in my house.”

“Because she might leave.”

“Yeah.”

“Hank, you’ll never know if she’ll stay unless you give her a chance to.”

Hank looked up at Nadja. It wasn’t possible that Esther would want to stay. What had he overheard her saying two nights before?I can’t wait to go.

And yet…