9
The next day went by in a rush. Two of the contractors Noah had hired came out to the house, which meant I lost time talking to the plumber and the carpenter.
Noah must have offered them some kind of bonus because they were both ready to start work, and that meant I had to shift around my own list of things to do because there was always one thing that couldn’t be done until something else was done first. The kitchen walls had to be painted before the carpenter would install the cabinets, which meant calling Noah on his break at work to figure out which color we were going to use, and the call turned into a FaceTime.
Noah kept saying, “Fab,” and after a while, the carpenter started looking at me differently.
Since I still needed to paint the kitchen, I sent the carpenter to work on the trim in the front room.
I got the plumber set up in the bathroom, and then I realized I didn’t have a roller, so I couldn’t paint, and that meant pushing back the cabinets again, and then the carpenter needed a piece of trim that, of course, I didn’t have.
In between all of that, I found five minutes for my daily call to the hospital to check on Si.
No change.
The chaos wasn’t all that different from when Si and I worked a job.
Construction in general—and rehabbing in particular—meant a lot of circular progress.
You did one thing, but then you realized you had to do this other thing, and then you discovered this new problem that meant you had to do a third thing.
So, even though I was swearing a blue streak and sweating like crazy and running around for about ten hours straight, there was something comfortable about it.
This was how it was supposed to be—everything slow, everything fucked up, but moving forward inch by inch.
The plumber knocked off at three. The carpenter left at four because the walls still needed a second coat of paint and he’d finished the trim.
I lost an hour fucking around with the pocket doors before finally giving up.
I stopped in the kitchen long enough to snap a picture of the first coat of paint and send it to Noah, and then I lost more time trying to figure out why one of the P-traps was leaking.
When I checked my phone again, it was almost six, and Noah hadn’t answered.
Which was…well, not strange. Not exactly. I mean, we’d gone almost two years without talking to each other. But then, I’d thought we were divorced, and that was a pretty solid ending to any conversation.
I finished with the P-trap and cleaned up the water.
Six-fifteen. Still nothing from Noah.
Was it strange?
Next up was replacing some of the hardware on the doors. I started taking the handles off. I’d been at it for about five minutes when I gave up and took out my phone.
Six-twenty-one.
I unlocked my phone and started to type a message. Are you okay? felt like way too much, so I settled on Do you have time for a quick question?
Noah’s response came back almost immediately: Can’t. Family.
And then it came back to me: the gingerbread houses.
How’s it going? I asked.
No response.
Which was fine. It made sense. I mean, he was with his family, for fuck’s sake. Of course he wasn’t going to be checking his phone every five seconds.
I fitted one of the new handles I’d bought. Gave it a jiggle. Got my screwdriver and the screws.
He probably couldn’t have his phone out, anyway.
Not without his dad complaining about Noah not paying attention to his family, like Jonathan didn’t get plenty of attention already.
And Noah’s mom would be three drinks in already.
She’d be talking about Noah’s clothes. She’d be talking about his weight.
Fuck, one time when she couldn’t get a rise out of him, she started talking about his nails.
And Marty. Jesus Christ. Spending a night with Marty?
That was cruel and unusual punishment. Marty talking about all the girls he banged, like he wouldn’t fuck a hole in the ground if he had five minutes and a shovel.
Marty talking about his career, like he hadn’t shat his pants at every job Jonathan had ever gotten for him.
Marty running his mouth all fucking night when he was too stupid to find his ass with both hands.
He asked if you needed to talk. He’s paying for the contractors. He didn’t twist your arm. He didn’t try to make you feel bad.
Christmas fucking village, I thought with something between laughter and panic.
I threw down the screwdriver and jogged upstairs.
Shower.
Shave. Not that there was much to shave, but Tracy noticed shit like that.
I found a clean pair of chinos—clean because I hadn’t worn them in about six months, and that had been to an NA luncheon.
Last time, what had Noah said? You couldn’t put on a sweater?
I had a blue one, but blue wasn’t very Christmas-y.
I lost fifteen minutes going through boxes at the back of the closet, but I finally found one that was red.
Noah would have called it something else like holly or cranberry or candy cane.
It was red, though, and red was a Christmas color.
I pulled it on, checked my hair—it’s a fucking buzz, motherfucker, I told myself in the mirror; what’s there to check? —and ran for the truck.