22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Jen
Harek sits down across from me and the purr starts before either of us says anything.
Three notes, under his breath, so low it's more in the table than in the air. The one he ran through the cell wall, before I knew there was a him.
He doesn't seem to know he's doing it.
The kitchen smells like bread. Crull's been at it since dawn — four loaves cooling on the rack under the window, another under a cloth on the counter, his sling hung over the back of the chair where he left it yesterday and hasn't picked up since.
He got shot two days ago and Harek benched him and this is what he does with his hands now, apparently.
Nobody's said a word about it. We just eat the bread.
Mara Cole's at the other end of the table with a cup she isn't drinking. Janet's upstairs — she's got the room at the end, and the dog sleeps across her door, and the box of student papers is still by the bed where she set it down three weeks ago.
I've got both hands around a mug and I'm tired.
Not from anything. That's the part I can't get past. I've slept eleven hours a night since the strike and I get up and I'm tired, and there's nothing left to do that would explain it. The work's done. The building's dark. I sat down days ago and I haven't gotten back up.
Harek's looking at me.
"The riverbank," he says. "And the white room. You went all the way up twice and you came back both times." Not a question. "Nobody knows what that takes out of a person. Vance doesn't. I don't."
He drinks.
"You're tired. That's all I've got."
"That's not much."
"No." He sets the mug down. "Sleep. Let us carry the rest."
"How long."
"Until you're not."
I look at him. He's got his hair up and yesterday's shirt on and he's been awake more than any of us this week, and he says it like it's the schedule.
He picks his mug back up and drinks.
Madison comes out to the porch in the afternoon.
She's slower than she was when I left for Allison. The walk's careful now, one hand at the small of her back, and she keeps it there while she lowers herself onto the swing, and lets her breath out all at once when she lands.
Fen's already out here. He's on the step with his back to the swing.
I'm down the other end of the porch with a colander in my lap and the last of the garden beans, snapping the ends off for Crull. Near enough to hear. Far enough not to be in it.
"Sit with me," Madison says.
Fen turns his head. He gets up and crosses to the swing and sits down with three feet between them.
She doesn't say anything for a while.
"You came back."
"I came back."
Madison moves her hand on her stomach. Shifts it to the side, and looks down.
"She likes the sound of your voice."
Fen stops. Not the shift — that stays down. His whole body stops.
He doesn't move.
"I'm not asking you to be near her," Madison says. "I'm telling you she likes you."
Madison looks at him a long time. “I’ve noticed you seem calmer. I’m not afraid of you now.”
She nods once.
Quiet. The beans go into the colander. Somewhere behind us Crull's oven door opens and shuts.
Fen smiles.
"I will try to talk more," he says.
Madison's head comes around.
"I do not have many words." Flat, no weight on it. "She can have all of them."
Madison doesn't answer.
She puts her hand back on her stomach and looks out at the trees, and Fen watches her do it and doesn't say anything at all.
They sit out there until the light goes.
Fen's still on the step at dusk when she's gone back in, the sun coming gold and low through the trees, and he sees me at the rail.
I set the colander down and sit next to him and he puts his arm around me. His body settled all the way through. I watch the trees. He turns and looks at me. I lean into his shoulder and we sit there while night cools off.
It's near midnight when the boards start creaking over the kitchen.
I'm still up, sitting at the kitchen table watching Crull bake. Finally not exhausted.
The creak comes again. Stops. Then a breath through the floor. Long. Slow. On purpose.
Crull's amber eye’s catching the low light as he looks up.
"That's her," he says.
The breath comes again. Then the boards, walking.
Harek's already going up the back stairs in his pajamas with his hair down. I hear him stop at the top.
"How far apart," I call up. Low.
"Five minutes." He's at the landing looking down at me. "She's been timing them herself. She's got them written down. She doesn't want anyone yet."
"How long's she been at it?"
He doesn't answer right away.
"A while," he says.
Janet comes out onto the landing behind him in a coat thrown over her nightgown. She's not asking anybody anything. She's already got her sleeves pushed up.
"I've got her," she says. Not to me. To Harek. "Go get your bag."
He goes.
The dog's come up off his bed and gone to the foot of the stairs. He doesn't bark. He sits down and looks up and waits.
I do the math standing there with my hand on the back of a chair. Three weeks, Vance said. Cuffed, in that basement, with Madison holding the phone up at her.
It's time.
Upstairs, she breathes through another one, and she doesn't call for anyone.
I stand.