Chapter 7
Luke
She watches me for a beat too long. This is usually where people tilt away—decide I am a little off, a little too intense, a little too much.
“I’ll call you,” she says. “Once I figure out what I’m doing.”
She won’t. Not at first. She’s the type who thinks she has to prove she can do it alone before she admits she can’t.
“That porch step needs to be replaced,” I say. “Before you fall through it. The front door probably won’t lock properly; it needs a bit of work. And there’s a soft spot under the kitchen sink that’ll turn into rot if you ignore it. Start there.”
She narrows her eyes.
“You can tell all that from one look?”
“I’ve seen things collapse before,” I say. “Gets easier to recognize the signs.”
She swallows and it’s obvious she is thinking about her old life, about whatever she left behind in that other state with the other house and the other version of herself.
She nods once. Abrupt.
“Okay. I’ll…call. Maybe.”
“You will,” I say.
She bristles.
“You sound sure.”
“I am. This house is bigger than you are. It’ll win if you let it. But it doesn’t have to.”
She looks past me, out toward the road. There’s not much to see—just scrub grass, a narrow turnoff, and the long stretch back to town. Houses aren’t packed in out here. They sit on their own plots, far enough apart to call it privacy.
But that’s not what she’s thinking. She’s concerned for her safety. She’s clocked the boot in her door, my refusal to take no for an answer. Which is exactly what I want. I want her mind to travel to all the places she’d rather it didn’t go.
Life way out here won’t be what she’s used to. There are no lawns manicured into submission. Just patches of effort—some mowed, some not. Mailboxes lean slightly, painted or not, depending. But even here, there are rules. You learn them fast.
How far to stand back. What not to ask.
How to blend without looking like you tried.
“I didn’t come here to lose,” she says quietly.
“I know,” I say—and I do—because no one moves to a place like this unless they are trying to prove something.
She gives me one last look, like she is memorizing me in case she needs to describe me to a cop later. Smart.
“Well, I’ve got work to do,” she says. “I’ll catch you later.”
Then she turns and walks deeper into the house I just opened for her, like it is nothing. Like I might follow her and she doesn’t care either way, even though she should.
This time the door doesn’t stick. I catch it before it can slam into her heel.
“Marin,” I say. She glances back, hair falling into her face.
“Change the locks as soon as you can. And I wouldn’t let anyone in.”
“Anyone?” she asks.
“Anyone,” I say. “This town likes to introduce itself when you’re not ready.”
“Maybe I like that,” she says, defiant.
“You don’t,” I say. “Not really.”
She doesn’t argue. That matters. She just nods once, files it away under Things to Decide Later, and disappears down the hallway, footsteps echoing on hollow floors.
I pull the door shut behind me. Feel it catch. Seal. Hold.
For a second, I stand there on the porch of the house that took one woman and spat her out a rumor, and I let myself picture it the way it will be when this one’s finished with it—boards straight, roof solid, interior lit warm in the evenings like a heartbeat behind ribs.
A place that looks like safety, though its history says otherwise.
Across the street, Mrs. Mather’s curtain twitches. She’s three phone calls deep, sending Marin’s arrival into the bloodstream that keeps this town alive. There will be talk. At the post office. Around town. Especially at Wednesday night service. They will say her name wrong.
They will get her story half-right.
They will tell her not to call me.
It won’t matter.
I step off the porch, feeling the give under the cracked board she hasn’t fallen through yet, and walk back to my truck.
She is here now. That is the only part that matters.
Houses I can fix.
People are harder.
But I’ve got time.