Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
ETHAN
The wall repair takes three days.
Monday through Wednesday, same as the soffit work, same schedule.
I’m there by eight, done by four, the work proceeding at the pace that old stone and careful mortar require.
You can't rush wall repairs. The mortar needs time to cure between sections, and if you push it, you get a wall that looks right and fails in two winters, which is worse than a wall that looked bad the whole time because at least the bad-looking wall was honest.
I don't rush work.
Danny is with me Monday and Tuesday for the heavier lifting, the section on the north end required pulling twelve stones and resetting the footing, which is a two-person job.
He's good at the quiet kind of work, Danny.
Doesn't need conversation to function. We work through the morning mostly in silence, which is the kind of partnership I trust most.
Delaney brings coffee at nine both mornings.
Not because we asked — because she apparently noticed we'd started at eight and that the thermoses were empty by nine. She comes out with two cups, sets them on the section of wall we're not currently working on, says something brief, and goes back inside.
Monday: “It's cold. Coffee’s from Gerald. I can't promise anything."
She's in a green sweater and she has flour on one wrist. She's been baking something, apparently, in the first week of October, in an empty cottage, from scratch, and she hands me the cup and does the brief, direct version of eye contact she does, the one that doesn't linger or perform itself, just checks in.
Tuesday: "Gerald had a stronger opinion about things this morning. Fair warning."
The coffee is genuinely excellent. Danny looks at it with surprise, which means he expected worse from a decade-old machine. "What's the roast on this?" he asks. I tell him I have no idea. He drinks it anyway and approves.
The coffee is good both days. Gerald has strong opinions about roasting levels, apparently.
On Wednesday, Danny's on the Galveston punch list and it's just me finishing the last section of mortar work on the south end of the wall. The repair is solid, I’ve checked it three times because I check things three times, and by afternoon the whole wall has a different quality to it. Not restored to new, which would be wrong on a wall this old, but resolved. It’s like a question that’s been sitting in the structure for a decade has finally been answered.
Delaney comes out at two with coffee and looks at the wall for a long moment.
"It looks the same," she says, "but different."
"That's right."
"The new mortar's a slightly different color."
"It'll weather to match in a year or two."
"But right now you can see exactly where the repair was."
"Yeah." I look at the wall. "Some people want the repair hidden. I can do that if you want. There are staining techniques."
She shakes her head, "No."
She's still looking at it, "I want to be able to see it."
I look at her sideways.
"It tells you where the thing has been," she says, and her voice is quieter on that than the sentences before it.
I know where she got that. I can trace it back to a grandmother's coffee mug with a chip in the handle, but I don't say so.
"Yeah," I mumble. "Exactly."
We do the final walkthrough of all the repair work on Thursday.
Roof, soffit, gutters, wall — she walks every section with me, asks the right questions about maintenance timing, takes notes on her phone without any self-consciousness about it. She takes photos of the areas I flag.
"If the soffit here shows any softening after spring thaw," I say, "that section should be checked before summer."
She photographs it. "What am I looking for?"
I describe it. She asks a follow-up that requires me to be more specific, and I am, and she asks another that requires more specificity still, and this is the thing I've noticed about how her mind works— it's active.
It's not collecting information; it's building a model. Every question is load bearing.
After we finish the walkthrough, she shakes my hand. Firm, brief, businesslike and. Professionalism does nothing to stop the instant sparks in my hand from the brief contact with her. I won’t examine that too closely…not yet. “The work is excellent," she says. "Thank you."
"I'll send the final invoice this week."
"Send it today if you can. I’d like to close it out." She looks at the gutters — new, properly pitched, doing their job the way gutters are supposed to. "Does Millhaven have a good hardware store loyalty program, or should I just accept that Beck and I are going to be on a first-name basis?"
"Beck already thinks you're on a first-name basis."
"Is that a loyalty program?"
"That's better than a loyalty program."
She smiles at the gutters. Just briefly, just to herself. "I'm going to tackle the pear tree this weekend. Any advice?"
"Don't."
She looks at me.
"Not this time of year. Wait until it goes dormant. Late November, after the leaves are down. You'll be able to see the structure. Then come find me before you start. Pear trees are particular about where you cut them."
"Are you volunteering?"
"I'm strongly recommending you don't do it alone."
"That's not the same thing."
"No, it’s not," I huff, amused.
She's watching me with the expression she gets when she's deciding whether or not to push, which I'm learning is a whole internal process. "Okay," she says finally. "Late November."
"Late November," I confirm.
Sunday dinner at my parents' house, my mother makes pot roast because it's fall, and that's apparently the law.
Cole is there with Maya, who brings wine and is therefore always welcome.
Frank is having a medium day — the tremor is noticeable in his right hand and he moves more carefully than last week, but he's sharp, his voice is clear, and he has the evening news opinions he always has, delivered with the conviction of a man who's paid taxes for forty years and considers this to have earned him the right.
"How's the Elm Lane job?" Frank asks, when Cole has gone to help my mother and Maya is refilling wine, and it's just us for a moment.
"Done," I say. "Good work."
He nods, processing. "She's staying," he says. Not a question.
"Bought spring bulbs."
His expression does something approving. "Elise always bought spring bulbs," he says. "Every year, without fail. She said the only way to have faith in a spring you couldn't see yet was to plant something for it."
I look at my hands. Think about a woman researching bulbs in October, planning for a June she's choosing to believe in.
"That's…" I stop.
"Yeah," Frank says. "It is."
Cole comes back from the kitchen at volume, presenting some theory about the Hendricks project timeline, and the moment dissolves the way they always do with Cole nearby, which is fine. Some things don't need to be said all the way through.
After dinner, my mother catches me in the kitchen. She has the look that means she's been waiting for a quiet moment. She doesn't need many words; she uses them efficiently, which is maybe where I got it.
"Are you sleeping enough?" she asks.
"Yes."
"You look like you're thinking about something."
"I'm always thinking about something."
"Something particular," she says, drying a dish. "I'm not asking who. I'm asking if you're okay."
I lean against the counter, think about what honest looks like here. "I'm fine," I say. "I'm just being patient."
"About?"
"About things that need time."
My mother looks at me the way she's been looking at me for thirty-six years — with the clear, uncomplicated attention of someone who has always known me better than I thought she did. "Patient is good. As long as patient doesn't become a reason not to try. Patience is not stillness.”
"It's not."
"Okay." She hands me a dish to dry. "Cole says she's been coming to Bellamy's twice a week now."
"Mags likes her."
"Everyone likes her." She takes another dish. "Frank says she's the kind of person who plants spring bulbs."
"She is."
"That's a thing to know about someone," she says.
I dry the dishes and put them away and don't say anything, and my mother doesn't say anything else, and this is one thing I'm grateful for about her — she makes the point and then she lets you keep your dignity.