27. Everett
27
Everett
M agic.
Just like that, like something I hadn’t even believed in a week earlier could answer all the world’s problems, and...and it did.
The old, gray, weathered board didn’t just reconnect to its other half, fitting together, the seam between the pieces disappearing as though it was a single board again. It unweathered right before my eyes, lightening and brightening until it was a pale gold once again, just as it had been when the porch had first been built, before I was born. The way it looked in the pictures on the mantel, with my grandparents looking young and beautiful and in love, Grandma looking like Betty fucking Crocker in her red and white gingham dress, standing on the porch of their new-built house.
And then the board next to it was pale gold too. All the ones next to it.
There were creaks and groans all around us, a feeling almost like an earthquake beneath our feet. Well, my knees, since I was still practically sprawled on my ass where I’d fallen. I was lucky I hadn’t landed right on that rusty nail...except it wasn’t rusty anymore, but shiny and new.
The faded paint on the wooden siding all along the front of the house was fresh and crisp and white again, pristine as the day it had been painted.
The window fittings were perfect, the shutters and front door the bright cherry red they’d been in the pictures.
I didn’t pick up the spilled objects from my plastic tub, but stood and wandered inside, almost unable to truly process what was happening right in front of me. It was like the special effects from a cartoon. Golden sparkles swept past, and left behind perfection.
Perfect untouched carpeting, a shining unscratched whorled mahogany dining table, fuck me it was just...it was like we were my grandparents, walking into the house on that first day, when it had just been completed. The smell of mildew and rot was gone. The way the wood of the dining room floor had faded after years of sun, gone.
I raced upstairs, the magic flowing before me, and watched as the water damage in the main bedroom just washed away, like the magic was a fucking squeegee, and it was just a few stray drops.
I’d thought my grandmother had been one of those old ladies who loved all things pastel and delicate, but it turned out it was just faded over the many years she’d lived there. The purple bedroom was suddenly decorated in the most vibrant shade, from the comforter to the carpeting to the silk flowers in a vase on the dresser.
It was incredible and . . . perfect.
I turned to see Peter following after me, smiling, looking just as charmed as I was by all the purple.
“This is nice,” he finally said, looking around. He seemed just the tiniest bit winded, like the magic had cost him something, but he didn’t look pale or sickly or even especially bothered. No, he was happy.
And he was watching me, waiting for a reaction.
Fair. I didn’t even try to hold it back. I rushed over to him and swept him up in my arms. “Peter, this is incredible. It’s...it’s like the day my grandparents moved in. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You like it?”
I didn’t know how he could even ask, but there was no reason to play coy about it. This was Peter, and we were adults, not flirting teens afraid of being rebuffed by our crushes. “I love it, Peter. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. And now we don’t have to worry about where we’re going to live, because the house is...everything is fixed. Everything I was trying to find someone to do repairs for, it’s just...done.”
And that stopped me short.
The bulletin board at the grocery store popped into my head. One paper layered atop another looking for someone, anyone, to fix things, from broken appliances to sagging rooftops to weathered porches.
I grabbed Peter’s hand and dragged him downstairs again to the kitchen, where the refrigerator was humming contentedly, like it wasn’t about to take off and go flying through the window with its painfully loud jet engine.
Fixed. Fixed. Everything fixed.
And just a few days earlier, Peter had been worrying that he’d never be able to be a real adult, because unlike me, he hadn’t spent years in school and didn’t know about marketing and such. He was literate, but he didn’t have my vocabulary. So what could he ever do to contribute to society?
I’d spent hours assuring him that he was a valid person and deserved to exist even if he never contributed a damned thing, but here it was. His ability to contribute in a way that he, and everyone else, found meaningful.
Maybe he didn’t need to work to deserve to live comfortably and have food in the fridge, but he wanted to work. He wanted to accomplish things. And here, he had.
He’d performed easily a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of repairs on my grandmother’s house in under five minutes.
I spun to face him, grinning. “How would you like to have a job?”
He cocked his head, then looked around. “Did I leave something unfinished? I’m sorry, I?—”
I grabbed his chin and turned him to face me, then pulled him in for a kiss.
That got his attention off any perceived failure, as he fell into me, kissing me for all he was worth, till both of us were breathless. He was panting when I broke away, eyes closed and a tiny smile on his lips.
“You didn’t leave a single thing unfinished. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” I leaned my forehead against his, just breathing for a moment before continuing. “But there’s no handyman in town. No one to do this stuff for anyone. You were worried about being able to get a job, remember? Well I’m pretty sure fixing things for other people in town constitutes a job. If you—if you can do it, and it doesn’t hurt you. Doesn’t use up all your, um, magic. Half the people in town need house repairs.”
His eyes rounded and he stared at me a moment, his breath catching. “R—Really? I could...people would call that a job?”
I almost wanted to cry. No, I did want to cry. Screw my parents and their “men don’t cry” nonsense. This sweet, perfect, kind man, questioning such an incredible gift was a goddamned tragedy, and I was going to see it made right, no matter what I had to do.