Page 8 of Single Pucking Orc

“And you gave him one.”

“I gave him three.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t do anything with one egg.”

“Of course you did.” Her mother sounded fondly amused. “Well, it’ll all sort itself out.”

Nora sat back in her chair. Her mother had always believed things would sort themselves out, and most of the time they did. Appointments were rescheduled. Lost things eventually turned up somewhere unexpected. But Nora had learned early that they sorted themselves out considerably more reliably when somebody remembered them. She started checking the mail at seven. By eight she knew when the electric bill was due, and by nine she was the one who called about it.

She had loved her mother enormously the entire time. She’d tried to explain that to people before and it never came out right. She had never once doubted that she was loved. Her mother’s love had been the one constant in a childhood built largely around improvisation. But she had also learned that loving someone and being able to rely on them were not necessarily the same thing.

“I have to go, Mom. I’ve got Hendricks and it’s almost quarter end.”

“Okay. Come for dinner Sunday.”

“What time?”

“Dinner time.”

“Mom.”

“Six?” her mother asked tentatively, which meant dinner could be served anywhere between four and midnight.

“I’ll text you Sunday morning to confirm.”

Her mother laughed. “Love you, baby.”

“Love you too.”

Nora ended the call and stared at the Hendricks account again.

It’ll all sort itself out.

That was Rognar too. Or at least it was how he appeared from across a fence. Smile first, figure out the details later. If something went wrong, laugh and improvise. If the recycling bin stayed at the curb an extra day, the world kept turning. If he started cooking and discovered he was short an egg, knock on Nora’s door and borrow one.

Three.

She’d given him three.

Nora sighed and opened a new document. She typed a heading. Six months. Underneath it she added pediatricians accepting new patients. Then infant CPR. Then feeding guidelines. She hesitated and added childcare agencies.

Her fingers stopped over the keyboard as she stared at the list. She hadn’t decided to make a list. She certainly hadn’t decided to help Rognar. Yet somewhere between her mother’s casserole dish and the Hendricks account, her brain had identified a problem and started solving it. Somebody nearby was about to be underwater, and before she had consciously decided anything at all, her hands were already building the raft.

“No.”

She selected the entire list, deleted it, and closed the document without saving it. This was precisely what she was not going to do. Rognar Stonebreaker was thirty-four years old. He had a career, a house, teammates, friends, money, and presumably the ability to operate a telephone. He did not need the woman next door to organize his life simply because it had abruptly become more complicated.

And she did not need another person’s complications spilling into hers.

She returned to the Hendricks account. She made it twelve minutes before something moved outside and she looked up. Then she told herself it was entirely reasonable to get up and go to the window because it was her window, and she was entitled to look out of it.

Rognar was unloading the truck. He had taken Charlie inside first. Good. He’d listened to her, which shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did.

He started hauling boxes. He did it quietly, she’d give him that, moving with a delicacy that looked absurd on a male that size, easing the truck’s tailgate down inch by inch so it wouldn’t slam, catching a bag before it toppled. Every couple of trips he’d stop and look back at the lit front window of his house—checking, she understood after the third time. Checking on the baby as though she might have gone somewhere in the time it took him to walk to the truck and back.

And the equipment.