And Marcus felt that familiar combination of love and exposed helplessness that his son managed to produce in him on a near daily basis. "I met the neighbor," Marcus said. Darius raised his eyebrows. The lady with the porch light. Marcus paused.
You notice the light? You can see it from my window. Darius said like this was the most obvious thing in the world. It's always on even late. Marcus nodded slowly.
Is she nice? Darius asked. Marcus thought about it. I don't know yet, he said honestly. Darius considered this.
Then that's not a no. He went to his room. Marcus stood in the kitchen for a moment longer. Then he went to the back door just to check the lock, he told himself, and through the glass pane at the top of the door. He could see across the yard to the fence and beyond it.
To the amber glow of that lamp on the shepherd's hook. It was still on. He locked the door and went to bed. Over the following two weeks, Marcus and Clare fell into something that wasn't quite a routine, but wasn't entirely accidental, either. He would come home from work.
She would be on the porch. Sometimes he had fence repairs or yard work to do that brought him to that side of the house. Sometimes he just found reasons to be outside. He wouldn't have admitted that last part to anyone. He barely admitted it to himself.
Their conversations were short at first. Careful. The way conversations are between two people who have both learned through experience that caring about things can be dangerous. Rough day, she asked one evening when he came out and sat on his porch steps with a look on his face that apparently said everything without him meaning it too. Dishwasher in a commercial kitchen, he said.
Been fighting it for 2 days. Motor kept throwing codes that didn't match the actual problem. Did you figure it out? Eventually, he paused. Somebody replaced the wrong part 3 years ago.
Wrong brand. Close enough to look right. When it wore out, it wore out wrong. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "That's a lot of life in that sentence. " Marcus looked at her.
She was looking at her book, not at him, but there was a slight curve at the corner of her mouth that told him she knew exactly what she'd said and meant it. He found himself smiling just barely, just for a second. But it was the first time in a long time that his face had done that without being asked. He learned things about her slowly. The way you learn things about people when nobody is in a hurry and there's no performance happening.