Chapter 6 Learning to Breathe Again
The next two weeks pass in a pattern that starts to feel familiar.
I wake up early. I drink coffee on the patio.
I go to work. I come home. I cook dinner for myself.
I water the garden. I go to bed. The simplicity of it is a relief after years of arranging my schedule around Kirk's moods and plans and cancellations.
Nobody texts me at the last minute to say they can't make it.
Nobody shows up distracted and half-present.
Nobody tells me they love me while looking at their phone.
At work I throw myself into the records preservation project with a focus that borders on obsessive.
I pull three more batches of documents from the archive room and organize them by decade and by condition.
I create a detailed inventory spreadsheet with columns for document type and date and fragility rating and notes about specific damage.
Rowena sees the spreadsheet and tells me it's the most thorough inventory the Records Department has ever produced.
I tell her I just want to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
What I don't tell her is that right now this project is the only thing in my life that makes complete sense.
Roger notices the change in me. He doesn't say anything about it directly because that's not who Roger is.
Instead he brings me coffee in the mornings without being asked.
He takes on extra work when the deed requests pile up.
He reads me passages from old council minutes and provides commentary that ranges from genuinely interesting to absurdly specific.
"I did not know that, Roger."
"History is full of bureaucratic near-misses, Brook. We are the quiet guardians of humanity's paperwork."
I laugh. It comes out naturally and it surprises me because I haven't laughed much lately. Roger looks pleased with himself and goes back to his filing.
Amanda checks in with me every day. Sometimes in person at the office.
Sometimes by text. She asks if I've eaten.
If I've slept. If Kirk has tried to contact me.
The answers are usually yes and yes and sometimes.
Kirk's calls have dropped to once every few days.
His texts are shorter now. Less apologetic.
More irritated. The latest one said I don't understand why you won't even talk to me.
This isn't fair. I deleted it without responding.
Fiona sent the letter to Kirk on Monday.
A formal document outlining the shared financial accounts and the debt and requesting his cooperation in separating everything cleanly.
She mailed it to his apartment and his office.
She told me to expect a response within ten business days.
If he doesn't respond she'll follow up with a second letter and then we'll discuss next steps.
I'm trying not to think about it too much.
The money. The debt. The eighteen months of withdrawals from a savings account I trusted him to protect.
Thinking about it makes me angry and the anger makes me tired and the tiredness makes it hard to focus on the things I can actually control.
So I focus on work. On the garden. On the small daily routines that keep me moving forward.
I've started spending more time in my house on the weekends.
Not hiding. Just existing in it more fully than I have in years.
I realize now that I always treated this place as temporary.
As a stopover on the way to the life Kirk and I were supposedly going to build together.
I never invested in it the way I should have because I kept expecting to leave it.
New curtains could wait because we'd be moving soon.
New patio furniture could wait because we'd have a bigger yard soon.
The kitchen drawer that sticks could wait because we'd have a better kitchen soon.
Nothing was worth fixing because everything was going to be replaced.
None of that was real. Kirk was never going to buy a house with me. He was never going to move forward with any of it. He just let me believe it because my belief made his life easier.
So now I'm fixing things. On Saturday I sanded down the kitchen drawer that's been sticking for three years. It took fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. I could have done it any time. I just didn't because I was waiting for a future that was never coming.
On Sunday I replanted the flower bed by the front steps.
I bought petunias and marigolds from the garden center and spent two hours digging and planting and watering.
My mother came by with sandwiches and helped me arrange the marigolds along the border.
She didn't mention Kirk. She asked about work and about the preservation project and about whether the tomatoes were ready yet.
Normal conversation. The kind that doesn't require anything from me except showing up.
I'm starting to notice that showing up for myself is something I haven't done in a long time.
On Thursday morning I load the latest batch of records onto the cart and push them across the street to the County Archives. Ross is at his worktable examining a large bound volume of county land records. He looks up when I come in and closes the volume carefully.
"Good timing," he says. "I just finished the assessment on your last delivery. Want to see the results?"
"Absolutely."
He walks me through the preservation report. Three documents from the 1890s need immediate deacidification treatment. Two plat maps need encapsulation in archival-quality polyester film. One council minute book from 1912 has a damaged binding that Ross wants to repair himself.
"I can do the binding work here," he says. "I've restored a few dozen books over the years. The spine on this one is separating at the front hinge but the pages are still in good shape. If I catch it now it'll last another fifty years."
"You repair books?"
"Among other things. My father was a carpenter. I grew up learning how to fix things with my hands. Books. Furniture. Old window frames. If it's made of wood or paper or leather I can probably figure it out."
"That's impressive."
"It's mostly patience. And a willingness to work slowly." He sets the report down on the table. "Speaking of which. I finished cataloguing everything ahead of schedule so I have the rest of the afternoon free. Do you still want to grab that coffee sometime? The offer stands."
I look at him. He's standing with his hands at his sides and there's no pressure in his expression at all. He asked a question and he's comfortable waiting for whatever answer comes. He's not leaning in. He's not performing confidence or charm. He's just there. Present. Calm.
"How about today?" I say. "After work?"
"Today works. The place on Third Street? The one next to the bakery?"
"I know the one. I pass it every morning on my way in."
"I'll meet you there at five fifteen."
I go back to City Hall and spend the rest of the day working through records requests and trying not to think about the fact that I just agreed to get coffee with a man who isn't Kirk.
It's not a date. It's coffee. Colleagues get coffee.
It doesn't mean anything. But my stomach is doing something it hasn't done in a long time and I don't know how to feel about that.
At five o'clock I pack up my desk and tell Roger I'll see him tomorrow. Amanda catches me in the lobby.
"You look different today," she says. "Like you actually want to go somewhere after work instead of straight to your couch."
"I'm getting coffee with Ross Hughes. The archivist."
Amanda raises both eyebrows. "Coffee?"
"It's just coffee, Amanda."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face said plenty."
"My face is an open book. I can't help that. Go have your coffee. Call me later."
The place on Third Street is called Barlow's.
It's a small independent coffee shop with exposed brick walls and mismatched furniture and a chalkboard menu behind the counter.
I've walked past it hundreds of times but I've never actually gone in.
Kirk preferred chain coffee places and I never argued about it because it wasn't worth the conversation.
Ross is already there when I arrive. He's sitting at a table near the window reading a book. He stands when he sees me.
"I ordered you a coffee. Black. But I also got cream and sugar on the side because I realized I don't know how you take it."
"Black is perfect."
We sit down and for a moment it's a little awkward.
The kind of awkwardness that comes from two people who have only ever talked about work suddenly sitting across from each other in a non-work context.
But it passes quickly. Ross asks me how long I've been at City Hall.
I tell him almost eight years. He tells me he's been at the County Archives for six.
He moved to Wildhorse from a smaller town about an hour north where he worked for the county historical society.
"What made you move here?" I ask.
"The archives position opened up and it was a bigger facility with a better budget. Plus my father lives about twenty minutes outside of town. He's retired now. We spend weekends working on projects together."
"What kind of projects?"
"Mostly furniture restoration. He finds old pieces at estate sales and flea markets and we fix them up in his workshop. Last month we refinished a walnut dining table from the 1940s. It took three weekends but it came out beautifully."
I set my coffee down. "You refinish furniture."
"Is that strange?"
"No. I do the same thing. I buy old pieces at estate sales and fix them up.
I have a side table in my living room right now that I found at a yard sale for twelve dollars.
It was in terrible shape. Water stains and a broken leg.
I stripped it down and repaired the leg and refinished the whole thing. It looks brand new."