Sometimes just with the particular ache of missing someone who knew you completely. Someone who could have looked at him on a given day and said, "You're tired." and been exactly right. And known what that meant in a way that went deeper than the words. He had not let himself think about finding that again. It seemed like an impossible thing to want.
It seemed like the kind of want that belonged to people who weren't raising a daughter alone on two jobs with a sleep deficit that he had quietly accepted as permanent. And then on Saturday morning, he showed up at Olivia's front door with a paint roller, a dropcloth, and a bag of supplies from Home Depot. And Olivia opened the door in paint splattered jeans and a faded Howard University sweatshirt with a cup of coffee in each hand. She held one out to him. "Figured you'd need this," she said.
He took it. Their fingers didn't touch, but something passed between them anyway. Something small and ordinary and completely destabilizing. "Thank you," Marcus said. "Don't thank me yet," she said.
Wait until you see what 3 years of deferred maintenance looks like on the other side of that wall. He laughed. It came out before he could think about it real unguarded. A little rusty. Olivia looked at him with that expression again.
The one that saw things. "Come on," she said. "Let me show you the damage." They worked for 4 hours that first Saturday. Marcus painted. Olivia worked beside him, not watching doing.
She'd clearly painted before. Her technique was efficient. No wasted motion, the kind you only develop by doing something long enough that your hands know it without instruction. At some point around 10:00 a.m., she told him she'd been a community counselor for 11 years. School districts mostly, she said.
Then a family resource center. Kids who needed someone to talk to who wasn't a teacher or a parent. Parents who needed someone to talk to who wasn't their kid. What happened to it? She was quiet for a moment.
Her roller kept moving. Budget cuts, she said. 8 months ago, they eliminated the entire department, 14 counselors, including me. I'm sorry. Everybody was sorry.
She said it without bitterness. Just flatly. The way you state a fact. Sorry doesn't pay the mortgage. Marcus looked at her.