The almost laugh surprised her. He could see it in her face the way she didn't expect to feel it. "Ta," she told the waitress. "Camomile, if you have it. " When the waitress left, Marcus said, "Tell me about the life you actually want. Not what you're running from, what you're running to. " Clare opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.
"I don't know yet," she admitted. "That's okay. " "Is it? " "Yeah. " He wrapped his hands around the fresh coffee the waitress sat down. "Most people don't. They just know when the direction they're headed is wrong. " He looked at her. Do you know that much?
Yes, she said quietly. Certainly. Yes, I know that. Then that's where you start. For a while, they just talked.
Not about the grandmother, not about Andrew, not about the arrangement or the money or the ultimatum. Marcus found himself telling her about his son Deshawn, 8 years old, and obsessed with dinosaurs, specifically the kind that could fly, which he insisted were not actually dinosaurs. They were terosaurs and he would correct you about this every time without fail with the confidence of a man who had facts on his side. Clare laughed at that. A real laugh and Marcus realized it was the first time he'd made someone laugh in a while.
The realization sat in his chest like a small warm thing that he wasn't sure what to do with. He told her about the shop, Donniey's Auto and Repair on Cascade Avenue, where he'd worked for 9 years, where he knew every customer by name and their car's whole history, and could listen to an engine and know what was wrong with it the way a doctor listens to a heartbeat. He told her how it felt when Donnie called everyone into the breakroom one Tuesday morning and told them the building had been sold and they had 3 weeks. "Just like that," Clare said. "Just like that. " He looked at his coffee.
9 years. And then just like that. What did you do? What could I do? Went home.
Told Deshawn we were having pizza for dinner. Didn't tell him why. Sat up until 2:00 in the morning updating my resume on a library computer because my laptop was broken and I couldn't afford to fix it. He paused. And then I got up in the morning and started over.
Clare watched him. How do you do that? She asked asked. "Just start over without falling apart. " Marcus thought about it. "Sometimes you fall apart," he said honestly.
"You just make sure you do it somewhere your kid can't see. " She nodded slowly. Something passed across her face that looked like understanding. "Your son's mother," she started carefully. "Gone," Marcus said. Not harsh, not sad, just a fact that had been a fact for long enough that it no longer had sharp edges.
Left when Deshawn was three. It's just the two of us. And you've been doing this alone. I've got a good support system. My sister Renee, she comes over when she can.
My neighbor, Miss Patterson, watches Deshawn sometimes. People been good to me. He paused. But yeah, mostly just the two of us. Clare was quiet.