We've been doing useful things. We've been sitting in your kitchen having a conversation we've both been not having for years. That's not useful. That's overdue. She turned to face him fully.
But I mean practical. I'll help you check the shop. Make sure the tarp on the skiff is holding. Whatever you normally do when a storm has been through. Marcus looked at her barefoot in his kitchen, wearing his work shirt and a blanket, hair still down from the blanket, hair still down from the night, and thought about the version of Clare Bennett he'd known from a distance for years.
The polished one, the background one, the one who smiled at parties and said the right things in the right order. She wasn't that person in this kitchen. Maybe she'd never been that person. Maybe he'd just never been paying enough attention. Boots?
He said, "What? I've got an old pair of lacrosse boots in the mudroom. They're going to be enormous on you, but if you're coming outside, they're better than nothing." Her face did the thing again. That almost smile that stopped just before it became real.
Like she taught herself to hold them back. I'll make it work. They went outside together. The ridge road was passable. The water hadn't reached this elevation, but below the dock, the river was wide and fast, carrying everything.
It had pulled loose through the night. A section of wooden dock from somewhere up the river. A lawn chair, an orange one, spinning slowly in the current. Marcus' dock was holding the way he'd built it to hold, and the skiff was secure under the tarp, and the lines on the runabout were taut and right. He checked them anyway, methodically, and Clare walked beside him and held things when he needed them held, and didn't fill the silence with chatter.
He was starting to understand that the silence with her wasn't absence. It was a kind of presence. He was checking the cleats on the far end of the dock when she said quietly. What happened with Dileia's mother? He didn't stop what he was doing.
Finished the cleat, checked the next one, stood up. Her name was Patricia. We were together for 2 years. Dileia was a year old when she left. He kept his voice even.
She wasn't ready. I couldn't fault her for that. She was 25 and she'd wanted a different kind of life than what I could offer. Did you love her? I cared about her.
I wanted to build something with her. I don't know if that's the same thing. Clare was quiet for a moment. Do you know where she is now? Last I heard Phoenix.
She's not in Dileia's life. And Dileia stopped asking about her in the way that means she stopped expecting an answer. He paused. That's the part that gets me. She doesn't ask anymore.