I called three people. My mother didn't answer. My father didn't answer. A pause. Vanessa's phone went to voicemail.
He applied a strip of medical tape across the cut and sat back. And then you called me. I didn't call you. I walked to you. That stopped him.
He looked up at her and she was watching him with something in her expression he couldn't quite name. Not embarrassed, not defiant, more like she'd said a thing she'd been holding for a long time. And now that it was out, she was waiting to see what he did with it. Why, he said. She looked toward the window where rain was streaming down the glass in sheets.
Because I've known your address for 6 years and I knew you wouldn't turn me away. She paused. And because I didn't want to call anyone who was going to make tonight about themselves, Marcus stood up and moved to the window. The road below was gone now, completely. Just water from one tree line to the other, black and fast moving with debris riding the surface.
The power lines on the far side of the road were swaying in the wind. He watched one of them arc a faint blue white flash and the lamp in the corner behind him went out. The house dropped into darkness. Clare didn't gasp. She didn't say anything.
In the dark with only the sound of rain and the distant roar of the river coming up through the walls. Marcus heard her exhale slowly. That's going to be a while. Then she said, "Yeah." He felt his way back across the room to the workbench and found his headlamp by touch.
He clicked it on and dug out two camping lanterns from the cabinet under the bench. Handed one to Clare. She took it, clicked it on, and held it up. And in the upward light of it, her face looked different, softer somehow, and more tired than he'd first realized. He lit the second one, set it on the coffee table.
I'll get you something dry to wear. Those need to come off before you get hypothermic. She looked down at her dress. It's $2,000. It's soaking wet and it's 45° outside.
I'll find you a bag for it. She almost smiled at that. He saw it at the corner of her mouth, just the edge of it. Before she shut it down, he went to his bedroom and came back with a pair of thermal sweatpants, a long sleeve work shirt that had been washed enough times to be soft, and a pair of wool socks. He set them on the arm of the couch.
Bathrooms down the hall, second door. There's a robe on the hook if you want it. She looked at the pile of clothes. These are going to be enormous on me. Probably.
She picked them up and walked down the hall without another word. Marcus stood in his living room and listened to the rain and tried to decide what exactly he was going to do with the rest of this night. Clare Bennett. He'd known her mostly at a distance. The way you know someone who belongs to a world you spent some time in and then left behind.