I shouldn't have said that. No, I said. You probably should have said it a long time ago. Her eyes came back to mine. There were a dozen reasons not to keep looking at her.
I knew every one of them. Lauren, history, age, the shape of gossip. The fact that Diane had once been almost family in a way that made this whole afternoon feel like stepping over an invisible line. But there was also this. For the first time in almost a year, I felt seen without being measured and found lacking.
I opened the door. Outside, the yard was bright after the rain, the repaired gate catching sunlight along the new screws. Diane followed me onto the porch. I still need to stain that replacement board, I said. You don't have to.
I know. She smiled faintly. There it is again. I can come back Saturday. The words came out before I gave them permission.
Diane looked at the fence, then at me. That would help, she said. It was the safest answer. It It was also not the whole answer. I walked to my truck, opened the door, and glanced back once.
Diane was still on the porch, one hand resting against the railing, watching me leave like she wanted to say something and was too decent to let herself. Then my phone buzzed. A text from Lauren. Mom told me you came over. Please don't make this strange.
I looked from the message to Diane on the porch. And for the first time since the breakup, I didn't feel like I owed Lauren the smallest version of myself. I went back Saturday. That was the first decision I could not dress up as obligation. The fence was fixed enough.
The gate latched. The post held. The replacement board needed stain, yes, but that was the kind of detail a man could leave unfinished if he was trying to be wise. I was not trying very hard. Diane was in the backyard when I arrived, kneeling beside a flower bed with a basket of weeds and her hair pulled back under a wide straw hat.
She looked up when she heard my truck. For half a second, her face lit before she remembered to be careful. Then she stood, brushing dirt from her jeans. You came. I said I would.
I know. She looked toward the fence. People say things. Some do. That made her smile, but it faded quickly.
There was tension in the yard that had not been there before. Not the soft, strange tension from the kitchen. This was sharper, aware, like both of us had spent the past two days thinking about the same moment and arriving at it from opposite sides. I grabbed the stain and brushes from the truck. Diane took off her gardening gloves.
I made coffee. Is that part of the payment plan? No, the sandwich was payment. Coffee is bribery. For what?