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"It's your house."

"I don't want to yell. They're listening."

Of course they are.

I keep working. Rinse, press, wait. The black comes up slower each time, and at some point I stop counting and start listening to the frost tick against the window instead.

His hand finds my wrist. Not gripping. Just there.

"Maren?"

"Yes?"

"What did it cost you?"

"What do you mean?"

"The line." He isn't looking at the leg. He's looking at me. "On the gravel. You made a door out of nothing. Nothing costs nothing."

"Then I'll send you an invoice when it shows up."

I say it fast because it's the only true answer I have. I don’t know yet. Nothing hurts. Nothing's bleeding. I feel fine, and I've decided not to look directly at how fine I feel.

I hold up my hands so he can see them. Steady. Flat. Not one tremor.

He looks at my hands for a long time and doesn't say one word about them either, which is worse.

Sid appears in the doorway, takes in the towels, the canister, the ruined rug, and turns around.

I'll be downstairs. Under no circumstances call for me.

“What a brat!” I yell.

By eleven the black stops coming up.

The wound closes while I'm watching it, which is a thing I’ll never get used to, the skin drawing over like water finding its level. What's left is a red seam the length of my hand and a man who's gone gray under his tan and won't lie down.

I bring up the donuts.

They've been squashed under the passenger seat since four o'clock, six of them in a paper bag gone translucent, and they’re the worst donuts I’ve ever eaten.

He eats two.

"You were carrying these around all day," I say.

"Waiting for a good moment."

"You had eight hours."

"I was building up to it."

I laugh, and it comes out cracked in the middle, and then I'm not laughing.

He shifts over on the bed. It hurts him. He does it anyway, and I climb up next to him with my back against the headboard and my shoulder against his, and we sit there in the dark with the bag between us.

"Say it," I tell him.

"Say what."