Some people are fluent in everything except the things that matter most to them. He paused. Did you respond? I said, I am. Thank you.
A breath. And then I sat in my functional bathroom and cried for about 20 minutes. That sounds right. Marcus said it was embarrassing. Crying in a bathroom you pay for yourself is not embarrassing.
Marcus said it's the most honest thing you can do. She laughed at that. The real laugh. The unguarded one. And Marcus felt it the same way he always felt it, like something coming in at the right frequency.
He was aware of what this was becoming. He was also aware that he was a man with a 90-day probationary job and an 8-year-old son and a credit score that was in recovery and approximately no business adding romantic complexity to his life right now. He was aware of all of that. I was also aware that it didn't quite matter the way he expected it to matter because this wasn't romantic complexity. This was just Clare, who was sharp and honest and sometimes funny in ways that snuck up on him.
Who was figuring out how to be a person without a blueprint the same way he was figuring out how to be a manager without formal credentials. Who texted him on Thursdays to ask how the building was going and who he texted back with specific answers because she actually wanted specific answers and not just fine. Desawn had asked about her once indirectly the way kids do when they're curious but trying not to be obvious about it. Is she you the woman from the restaurant? He'd said looking at Marcus's phone when a text came through.
You don't know who that is. Marcus said you said a woman asked you to help her. Deshawn said when I asked what you were doing that night. I did say that. Is that her?
Marcus looked at his son. Yeah, that's her. Desawn considered this with appropriate seriousness. Is she nice? Yeah, she is.
Does she know about terasaurs? Marcus smiled despite himself. I don't think so. You should tell her," Deshawn said with the confidence of a person who believed this was relevant information in any relationship assessment. "I'll mention it," Marcus said.
He did mention it the following Tuesday. And Clare had laughed and said she was now fully prepared to have a very detailed conversation about Terasaurs anytime Deshaawn wanted because she had looked it up and apparently there was a lot to say about terasaurs and she respected that the kid had opinions, which was Marcus had not expected that. He'd expected something politely interested, not genuine curiosity about an 8-year-old's specific area of expertise. He turned the phone over in his hand after that conversation and sat with that for a while. Then the 42nd day happened.
It started like any other Tuesday. Marcus was in the building early. He was always in the building early, now had developed a habit of a walkthrough before the facility's office opened a quiet circuit through the building that let him hear things and notice things before the day's noise started. He'd picked this up from his years at the shop. Donnie always said that a machine will tell you what it needs if you're quiet enough to hear it.