I was She stopped. She picked up her cup, set it down again. I was supposed to marry someone appropriate and add to the network and be a good presence at events. She said it flat and matter-of-fact. The way you say things after you've said them to yourself so many times they've lost the power to hurt but not the weight.
That was my assigned lane and you drove out of it. I drove out of it. She agreed and took a job on the river and learned things that actually interested me and stopped asking for permission. She looked at him which is why last night happened the way it did. I stopped asking permission a long time ago.
I just hadn't admitted that to the people who needed to hear it yet. Her phone buzzed a third time. This time she picked it up. She looked at the screen and whatever she saw there changed her expression, not fear. Something more complicated than fear.
Resolution maybe. The particular kind of resolve that comes when you've made a decision and the situation has just called your hand. My mother, she said, probably knows about the car. You going to answer? She looked at the phone.
Then she looked at him and she put the phone face down on the table. "Not right now," she said. Marcus looked at her for a long moment. "Okay," he said. She stood up, picked up both their cups, and went to the sink.
She washed them in the saved water, dried them, put them back, stood at the window again, looking out at the water. "The dock's still holding. It'll hold. How old is the dock? I built it 6 years ago.
She turned. You built it yourself. Earl helped with the foundation posts. The rest was mine. She studied him.
You built your own dock. It's a dock. Clare. It's not a cathedral. I'm not saying it's a cathedral.
She folded the dish towel and set it on the counter. That same careful efficiency she moved with all the time. I'm saying most men in your position, the ones I grew up around, would have hired it out and told the story about supervising the crew. You built it. Most men you grew up around were doing things for the story.
Marcus said, "I do things because they need doing." She was looking at him the way she'd been looking at him since last night, like she was adding something up, column by column, and the total kept coming out bigger than she'd expected. "I know," she said. That's what I'm saying. Outside, a truck came slowly down the ridge road.
The water on the lower portion still too high to navigate, but someone up the hill checking the damage. Marcus heard it slow, then stop, then back up. Neighbor checking the situation. Deciding to wait. We should do something useful, Clare said.