Earl is extremely useful. Something shifted in Clare's expression. Not quite a smile, but the predecessor to one. And you do this full-time. I do this all the time.
Whether it's full-time depends on the season. What do you do when it's slow? Fix things around here. Spend time with Dileia. He paused.
Read. What do you read? Whatever's there. He looked at her. Why?
She tilted her head slightly. Because I'm trying to figure out who you turned into after you left. The directness of it would have taken him off guard last night. This morning after everything it just sat there and waited for an answer. I turned into someone who fixes things he said and tries to do right by his daughter and doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about what people in your family think of him.
She nodded slowly. That's a good answer. It's the honest one. She pushed off the counter and refilled both their cups without asking and sat back down across from him. And this was the thing about Clare Bennett that Marcus was starting to understand.
She moved through through a space like she bel not like she owned it, not like she was performing comfort, but like she genuinely understood how to be present in a place, which was not something he would have predicted from the woman he'd always seen standing slightly behind her sister. "Can I tell you something?" She said. "You've been telling me things since midnight. This one's harder.
He leaned back in his chair. Then tell it. She held her cup with both hands and looked at the table between them. Not at him. At the table.
I knew about the engagement before it ended. The room shifted. Vanessa and I had a conversation, Clare said carefully. About 2 months before you were supposed to get married. She called me not to talk about you.
I want to be clear about that. She called to talk about the guest list and who was going to be sat where and a buzzer buzzer buzz. Darlene could near the bar be sat near bar because she had a drinking problem and it would be embarrassing. She stopped and in the middle of that conversation almost like it was an afterthought. She said, "I'm not actually sure I'm going to go through with it."
Marcus was very still. I said, "What?" And she said, "With Marcus? I don't think he's the right fit. He doesn't understand what our life requires of him.
Clare looked up. Those exact words. He doesn't understand what our life requires of him. The old anger moved through him. Faint and familiar.