Chapter 19
Madison
By late afternoon, the light had turned honey colored, the way it always did in late summer when the heat finally began to soften.
The air conditioner ticked as it turned on, Olive sang to Bunny in the bedroom, her sweet little voice drifting out into the rest of the house as I stood at the kitchen island trying to remember how to make an evening feel normal again.
I lined up the ingredients like a list of small victories.
Box of pasta. Jar of marinara. A handful of basil from the planter outside that looked suspiciously like it belonged in a magazine.
Olive’s favorite Parmesan is in a tub with a cracked lid.
I filled a pot at the sink and watched the water swirl and shimmer before I set it on the burner.
Steam rose in a thin ribbon and curled toward the ceiling.
Olive padded out in her rainbow socks, hairbrush clutched like a microphone.
“Mommy, Bunny says he is hungry.” She pressed the brush to her mouth and sang a little line about spaghetti while she tilted her head so I could see the sticker she had plastered to her cheek. It read “Brave” in glitter letters.
I tugged the sticker gently so it sat straight. “Bunny has excellent taste.”
“Uncle Seth likes eggs. But he will like pasta too,” she decided. She said it with the steady certainty of a person who expected the world to rise to meet her.
My stomach tightened. “We are not cooking for Uncle Seth.”
Olive blinked up at me, unbothered. “But he is tired.”
“He is fine,” I said. The words came out too quickly. I turned back to the pot and shook in the salt. The hiss was louder than it needed to be.
Olive climbed onto a stool and colored while the water rolled at a furious boil.
I added the pasta and stirred until the pieces stopped clicking against the metal.
The room smelled like tomatoes and basil, and something simple that made my shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
Domestic rituals always relaxed me. Put water on.
Stir. Taste. Adjust. Serve. Even when the big things were chaotic, a small kitchen to cook in could still ground me.
I set two place mats on the island and paused. The drawer held another set of flatware, heavy and expensive, a world away from the mismatched forks in my little bungalow. I pulled out a third fork before my brain caught up with my hand. Habit was a tricky thing. Hope was trickier.
“You want to carry napkins to the counter?” I asked.
Olive bounced off the stool and did it like it was a job she had trained for. She arranged the napkins with careful precision. Then she leaned her chin on the island and watched me pour noodles into the colander.
“Are we going home soon?” she asked in a small voice.
We were both still pretending to be brave. I squeezed the handle and willed my voice not to wobble. “Not yet. Mr. Seth and his crew are still fixing our house. We will go back when it is safe and dry.”
She nodded like this was perfectly reasonable. Children have such faith. I wished I could borrow a thimble of it.
By the time I plated the pasta, the sun had slid low enough to send a stripe of gold across the floorboards. The sound of a truck rolled up the drive, and my pulse skipped in a way that annoyed me. Gravel shifted, doors thunked, then quiet settled again. Olive straightened on her stool.
“He is here,” she whispered. “Can he try our pasta?”
“We are not a restaurant,” I whispered back, which made her giggle and steal the sting from my words.
Footsteps crossed the lawn. A shadow moved past the side window.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I reached for another plate.
It was a reflex, the kind that came from too many nights of setting two places at a table for the two of us.
Olive’s and mine. Only now there was a third presence in the space between us and the main house, and I could not seem to stop making room for him.
A knock sounded. Two soft taps. I wiped my hands on a towel, told my heart to calm down, opened the door, and found Seth on the step, sweat-dark T-shirt clinging to his shoulders, hair shoved back like he had done it with the heel of his hand.
He held a rolled tarp in one arm and a clipboard in the other.
His eyes did a quick sweep of the room, then landed on Olive. They softened instantly.
“Evening,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered, trying not to stare at the smear of dirt along his forearm. “Long day?”
He exhaled, a sound that was almost a laugh. “That depends. Do you measure days in nails hammered or fires put out?”
“Both.”
“Then yes.” He lifted the tarp. “Crew finished at the O’Malley place. Thought I would stash this in your closet. We will use it in the morning.”
Olive squirmed in her seat. “We are having spaghetti. Bunny said we should share.”
Seth’s mouth tipped at the corners like he wanted to smile and was negotiating with himself about it. He glanced at me, a quiet question in the look. I waved him in before I could overthink it.
“You can wash up at the sink,” I said. “But you are not allowed to complain about the sauce.”
He set the tarp by the door and moved to the sink with an obedient nod.
Water rushed over his hands. He scrubbed like he was trying to remove the whole day.
My chest tightened again, but this time it was not nerves.
It was something close to recognition. He stood at a sink like he did on a jobsite.
Efficient. Focused. The kind of person who does not quit just because he is tired.
We ate, perched at the island. Olive got extra cheese.
Seth twirled his pasta with the care of a man who was trying not to make a mess on his shirt.
The silence was not uncomfortable. It was the kind that had shape and warmth.
The kind that allows room for forks to click, and for a child to hum between bites, a comfortable silence.
“This is good,” he said finally.
Olive beamed. “Mommy used basil from the porch.”
Seth nodded like this was a serious culinary detail. “Fresh herbs make all the difference.”
“See,” Olive told me, very pleased to have an ally.
I lifted my brows at him. “Do not encourage her.”
“Too late,” he said, and a real smile flashed. It was quick, then gone, but it made the room feel larger.
After dinner, I ran Olive her bath, then brought every stuffed animal she owned into the living room to watch a show.
The guesthouse had a small couch that hugged the wall and two lamps that threw golden pools of light.
I folded laundry on the ottoman while Seth replaced the battery in the front door keypad and made a note about weather stripping along the threshold.
“Insurance adjuster is coming at nine,” he said without looking up. “I will meet him there.”
“You don’t have to.”
He capped his pen. “If we write the report together, they won’t drag their feet.”
I pressed my hand against a warm shirt and let the gratitude slide through me slowly, the way honey warms in tea. “Thank you.”
He stood there a second, like he wanted to say something else. Then Olive climbed onto his foot and wrapped her arms around his leg like it was a tree trunk.
“Uncle Seth, can we catch fireflies after my show?”
He looked down at the tiny person who had no idea she was reordering the furniture in two adult hearts. “We can try.”
We stepped outside when the sky went navy and the first pinpricks of light appeared in the grass.
The air smelled like cut lawn and warm dirt and the faint sweetness of the basil I had snipped.
Olive shrieked when a firefly drifted near her hands.
She cupped it and squealed when it blinked, then opened her palms so it could float away.
Seth stood beside me with his hands in his pockets.
I could feel the tiredness in him, but not the kind that pulled a person down.
The kind that comes after a day of doing something that matters.
He watched Olive run a lopsided path between the porch steps and the edge of the lawn.
His mouth was soft. It was not a look that matched the rumors about him, the ones that said he was made of stone and schedules.
“You were good with her today,” I said before caution could catch up to my tongue. “At the shop. You didn’t correct her when she called you uncle.”
He took a breath, then let it out slowly. “I didn’t want to take something away that made her feel safe.”
I had not expected that answer. It landed clean and heavy in the center of me. “Thank you,” I said again, quieter this time.
“You say that like it is hard,” he said, not unkindly.
“Maybe I am out of practice.”
He looked at me for a long second. “You have been busy surviving.”
There it was. Not pity. Not judgment. Just a simple read of my life.
I wanted to argue. I also wanted to sit down on the steps and tell him how many nights I had measured our safety by how quickly I could get to Olive’s bed from the kitchen if the smoke detector went off.
I wanted to say that single mothers do not often get a chance to relax.
We are always on high alert. The words stayed put. It was not time for them yet.
Olive caught another firefly, then ran back to us with her hands cupped like she was holding treasure. “Make a wish,” she whispered, and squeezed her eyes shut. “I wish our house was all better.”
Seth cleared his throat and looked out at the dark yard.
I watched his hand curl and uncurl once at his side, like he needed to put it somewhere and could not decide where it belonged.
“We will make it better,” he said. He did not add anything else.
He just said it, and the certainty lit something warm beneath my ribs.