Clare, more out of habit than genuine curiosity, began asking Gavin questions the way she might interview a job candidate, testing for cracks in whatever story he might be presenting. She asked about his work, his background, why a man capable of the discipline it took to run an honest garage, never seemed to want more than that. Gavin answered plainly, without embellishment, without the practiced humility of someone performing modesty for an audience. He spoke of his days simply of engines and small repairs, of the satisfaction in fixing something broken and handing it back whole. And he never once mentioned the encounter at the supply yard, never used it to angle for sympathy or admiration.
Something in Clare's posture shifted as the conversation continued. The guarded stiffness in her shoulders easing by degrees. She did not fully notice herself. There was no performance in the way Gavin spoke, no calculation behind his answers, nothing that matched the pattern she had grown so accustomed to recognizing and dismissing. At one point she asked, almost testing him, what he would do if he ever came into a large sum of money unexpectedly, half expecting him to describe some fantasy of expansion or luxury the way most men did when given the opening.
Instead, Gavin thought about it seriously for a moment and said he supposed he would fix the roof on the church two blocks from his garage since it had been leaking for three winters running and nobody in the congregation could afford the repair. Clare laughed before she could stop herself. A real laugh, unguarded, and immediately looked almost embarrassed by it, as though she had forgotten she was still capable of the sound. By the time dessert arrived, she found herself asking questions not to test him anymore, but simply because she wanted to know the answers. And that realization alone unsettled her more than anything he had actually said.
She asked about his late wife carefully, expecting him to deflect the way he deflected every other question about his past. He did not. He spoke of Ellen plainly without theatrics, describing the particular way she used to hum while cooking, and how the house had never quite sounded the same since. There was no self-pity in the telling, only the quiet honesty of a man who had made peace with grief without pretending it no longer existed. Clare found herself moved by that honesty, in a way she had not expected to be moved by anything that evening.
When Walter finally returned to the table, figning surprise that so much time had passed, he caught the faint, unguarded ease that had settled between his daughter and their guest, and he allowed himself a small, satisfied smile that he did not bother hiding. Later, after Gavin had said his goodbyes and the black car had carried him back toward town, Walter turned to Clare with something like wonder in his voice, remarking that it had been a very long time since he had seen her speak with anyone, stranger or otherwise. For quite that long without once glancing at her phone or steering the conversation back toward business. Clare did not have a ready answer for that. She only shrugged, claimed the wine had made her talkative, and retreated to her room with more questions circling in her mind than she cared to admit.