Your dad told me. He said it was the only way to do it. Darius looked at his bowl. Then at Marcus, "You told her that?" "Yeah," Marcus said.
Darius picked up his spoon, he ate, and then quietly without looking up, he said. It tastes right. Three words. Just three words. But Marcus understood everything in them.
The permission, the blessing, the careful, enormous generosity of a 12-year-old boy who loved his mother completely and was still capable of making room, who had sat at the top of the stairs in the dark and watched his father sit alone, and had decided in whatever way 12-year-olds decide things that he wanted his father to be less alone. Marcus looked at his son. Darius was eating his chili. He looked at Clare. She was watching Darius with the expression she got when something moved her and she was trying not to show how much.
She caught Marcus looking and glanced at him sideways. He reached across the table. She took his hand. Darius pretended not to notice, which was the kindest thing he could have done. A week before Christmas, Marcus fixed the south end of the fence.
He had the lumber already, had been meaning to get to it, but he took his time that Saturday morning, working carefully, doing it right, Clare came out with coffee, his black, no sugar, exactly the way he took it, which she now knew without asking, and set it on the fence post beside him, and stood there watching him work, the way people watch someone they care about do a thing they're good at. You're good at this, she said. Fixing fences. Fixing things, she said in general. He drove a nail.
I've been doing it a long time. I know, she said. But you're also you're gentle with it. You don't force things. You find the right fit.
He stopped, looked at her. She was looking at the fence, not at him, but she knew he was looking. I've been thinking, she said. Yeah. About the spring, she said.
About what this looks like in the spring. What do you want it to look like? He said. She was quiet for a moment. I want to still be here, she said.
Not because of the lease. Because I want to be, she paused. I want Darius to have a game in March, and I want to be in the stands. I want to take that job in Durham and come home and tell you how it went. I want, she stopped herself, gathered.
I want this to be what it's becoming. That's what I want it to look like. Marcus put down the hammer. He turned to face her. She turned to face him.