Clare moved the pans to a shelf I can reach.
Apparently, they have been communicating without my permission.
I still owe you a cup of coffee that does not come from a hospital machine.
Saturday, 11:00.
Bennett’s Cafe.
The table near the front window.
Come only because you want to.
Laurel.
At the bottom, she had written one more line.
I kept the chair empty for you.
I folded the letter carefully and placed it in my coat pocket.
Saturday was two days away.
For the first time since the accident, waiting felt harder than pain.
When Sophie came home that afternoon, she found me rereading the letter.
“Is Laurel okay?”
“She’s home.”
“That’s good.”
“It is.”
“Then why do you look weird?”
“Thank you.”
“You do.”
“She wants to meet for coffee Saturday.”
Sophie looked at me in the way only an eight-year-old can look at a grown man who is failing a very basic test.
“So go.”
“I am.”
“Okay.”
“That’s all?”
She shrugged.
“What else?”
“I don’t know.”
She opened the refrigerator.
“Can Laurel come here sometime?”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“I like her.”
“That’s not enough reason to invite someone into your house.”
Sophie turned.
“You invited Mr. Benson from work and he talked about gutters for two hours.”
Fair point.
On Saturday morning, I arrived at Bennett’s twenty minutes early.
Laurel was already there.
She sat near the front window with her walker folded beside the table and two cups of coffee between us. Her brace was hidden beneath a long dark skirt, but the careful way she shifted reminded me every movement still required planning.
“You’re early,” I said.
“So are you.”
“I had a transportation advantage.”
“Clare?”
“She waited outside until she saw me enter.”
“That sounds like Clare.”
I sat across from her.
“Did the machine give you two?”
“No. I pressed the button twice.”
“That is unusually honest.”
“I’m trying something new.”
For a moment, neither of us knew what to say.
In the hospital, conversation had come easily because the walls explained why we were together.
Here, we were simply a man and a woman meeting for coffee because neither wanted the connection to end.
Laurel touched her cup.
“How is your shoulder?”
“Sore.”
“Did you do the exercises?”
“Most.”
“That means no.”
“It means I made a judgment call.”
“You restore old buildings. You are not qualified to redesign physical therapy.”
“I know several things about structural recovery.”