Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
The diner occupied the ground floor of a building that had once been a bank. Its tiled walls and high windows belonged to another century, while the red vinyl booths and laminated menus looked as though they had survived several decades through stubbornness alone.
Abby arrived first and chose a booth near the back. She had barely removed her coat when Evan entered, still wearing the same dark sweater and trousers he always wore to work.
He looked tired, but the strain in his face had eased since their meeting at the café. The brace was gone from his hand, leaving yellowing bruises across his knuckles.
“How does it feel?” Abby asked as he slid into the opposite side of the booth. She nodded toward his hand before he could hide it beneath the table.
“Better.” Evan flexed his fingers cautiously. “My doctor has lowered the risk of permanent disgrace from severe to moderate.”
The phrasing was dry enough to make Abby smile. “That sounds promising.”
A waitress appeared with two menus and asked whether they wanted coffee. Abby ordered tea after the smell from the coffee turned her stomach, while Evan accepted a cup and added a plate of toast before looking at the menu.
“You ordered before reading anything,” Abby said as the waitress walked away. “Is toast your emergency meal?”
“It’s difficult to ruin.” He opened the menu and studied it. “I ate a great deal of it during the first year of the company.”
“Because you were too busy to cook?” Abby asked as she unfolded her napkin. “Or because you forgot to buy food?”
“Because our first office had a toaster, and the refrigerator stopped working whenever the air conditioner came on.” Evan rested the menu against the table. “We had to choose which appliance we needed more.”
Abby could picture a group of engineers negotiating breakfast around faulty wiring. Her smile lingered long enough for her cheeks to redden.
“Hudson said the company started in a converted warehouse,” she said. “He made it sound very industrial.”
“It was a warehouse.” Evan looked toward the sugar dispenser. “Converted may have been generous.”
The waitress returned with their drinks, and Abby waited for Evan to add anything about Hudson. He did not ask what Hudson had said about the company or use the opening to correct every old insult.
“What does your company actually do?” she asked as she wrapped both hands around the tea. “I know you build data systems for hospitals, but every time you explained the rest, Makayla interrupted or Hudson changed the subject.”
Evan’s attention sharpened. “We make hospital inventory software. The current systems can tell a hospital how many units it ordered, but they’re often poor at predicting where those units will be needed before someone requests them.”
“Medical supplies?” Abby asked as she tried to connect the explanation to what little she knew. “What kinds?”
“Medication, equipment, surgical materials, anything with a shelf life or unpredictable demand.” He moved the coffee cup aside and drew an invisible line across the table with one finger.
“If one hospital has more of something than it will use before expiration and another is about to run out, our system identifies the imbalance early enough to move it.”
Abby followed his explanation as he described the delays that had kept the product from expanding beyond its pilot program. The problem was easy to understand once no one treated her interest as an inconvenience.
“So the software already works,” she said after he finished. “You’re waiting for the hospitals to approve the connections between systems.”
“Mostly.” Evan picked up his coffee. “Every hospital has different security requirements, and every existing vendor believes cooperation will make them easier to replace.”
“Will it?” Abby watched the trace of amusement reach his face. “Replace them, I mean.”
“Some of them.” A trace of satisfaction appeared in his expression. “They may be right to worry.”
The waitress returned for their order. Abby chose soup and a baked potato because the thought of anything heavier made her uneasy, while Evan ordered eggs, potatoes, and another plate of toast.
“I expected you to order dinner,” Abby said after they returned the menus. “Those eggs sound like breakfast.”
“I missed breakfast.” Evan lifted his coffee. “And lunch.”
“You asked whether I had eaten.” Abby divided another packet of crackers between them. “I should have asked you the same question.”
They spoke about his work until the food arrived. Afterward, Abby told him about the apartments she had viewed, including one with a bedroom so narrow the door struck the bed when opened.
“The agent called it efficient,” she said as she broke a cracker over her soup. “I think that meant I could turn off the light without getting out of bed.”
“That could be useful.” Evan buttered his toast with his left hand to avoid pressing too hard with the right. “It shouldn’t cost the same as an apartment where the door opens.”
“It cost more.” Abby took one sip of soup before the smell of chicken broth became overwhelming. She placed the spoon down and pushed the bowl several inches away. “The neighborhood was apparently aspirational.”
Evan looked at the bowl but did not comment on what she had eaten. “Do you have to move immediately?”
“Sadie says I can stay as long as I want.” Abby pulled the potato closer and hoped its blandness would settle her stomach. “But I need a place that belongs to me before her guest room starts feeling permanent.”
“You don’t want to replace one shared home with another.” Evan looked at her over the rim of his cup. “Even when the other home belongs to someone you trust.”
“Exactly.” She looked up, surprised he understood without requiring a longer explanation. “I want to know which things I chose because I like them.”
Evan nodded slowly. “I’m still living at the office.”
“You own a house.” Abby set her fork down and studied him. “You don’t have to sleep at the office.”
“Makayla’s belongings are gone, but every room looks like she only just stepped out for an hour.” He turned his coffee cup between his hands. “I go there to shower and change. I haven’t managed to sleep there.”
Abby remembered the apartment after Hudson left, how every object seemed to be waiting for him to return and restore its ordinary meaning. She understood why Evan preferred a conference-room couch to that silent expectation.
“Sadie’s invitation is still open,” she said. “She asks whether you’re all right every morning.”
“She doesn’t even know me.” Evan looked down at his coffee.
“She knows you brought me to her house safely.” Abby tried another bite of potato. “That qualifies you in her eyes.”
“I appreciate it.” Evan looked toward the front windows, where darkness had reduced the street to passing headlights. “I don’t think I’m ready to sleep in a stranger’s house either.”
“Then we’ll keep meeting in places that belong to neither of us.” Abby moved the tea bag to one side of her cup. “Neutral territory seems easier.”
The words emerged before Abby considered how they might sound. Evan looked at her across the table, and his expression softened without turning the suggestion into something larger.
“I’d like that,” he said. “There are several restaurants in this city where Makayla never complained about me.”
“Hudson insulted the service in almost all of them.” Abby lifted her tea. “Our options where he is concerned may be limited.”
They stayed until the waitress refilled Evan’s coffee twice and began stacking chairs on the other side of the diner. When they finally left, Evan walked Abby to her car and waited beneath the awning while she unlocked it.
“We didn’t discuss them very much,” he said as she opened the door. “I’m proud of us.”
“We’re improving.” Abby looked back at the warm diner windows. “Next time we might manage an entire meal.”
“I’ll find somewhere with reliable toast.” Evan stepped away from the car. “The search may take several days.”
“Make sure they know how to poach eggs.” Abby smiled as she lowered herself into the driver’s seat. “I have standards.”
Evan waited until she started the engine before walking toward his own car. Abby watched him leave in the mirror, then turned toward Sadie’s house with the quiet awareness that she had enjoyed part of the evening.
The pleasure did not feel disloyal to the life she had lost. It belonged to two hours in which no one asked her to forgive, explain, defend, or decide anything.
Over the next eleven days, Abby and Evan met three more times. They ate in unfamiliar restaurants, walked through a public garden on an unexpectedly warm afternoon, and spent forty minutes in a hardware store after Evan admitted he had no idea how to repair a cabinet hinge.
Abby knew how to replace it because their father had insisted both daughters learn basic household repairs. Evan listened to her explanation, bought the correct screws, and sent a photograph that evening showing the cabinet door hanging straight.
Their messages began with practical questions and gradually expanded. Evan sent updates when he left the office before midnight, while Abby showed him photographs of apartments and accepted his observations without treating them as instructions.
Hudson continued contacting her. His tone shifted every few days from remorse to anger, then back to reassurance that he would forgive her once she stopped punishing him.
Makayla wrote less frequently. Her messages became longer as the silence continued, filled with explanations Abby saved but did not read beyond the first lines.
The separation reached its third week on a Thursday morning. Abby woke before the alarm with nausea rolling through her hard enough to force her into Sadie’s bathroom.
She knelt on the tile and waited for the feeling to pass. Her stomach remained empty despite the violent effort, and by the time she stood, sweat had dampened the back of her sleep shirt.
Sadie knocked once before opening the door. “Are you sick?”