Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
BECK
She rearranged my couch cushions.
Been here twelve hours and she's already reorganized the throw pillows, folded the blanket I left crumpled on the armrest, found a broom, and swept the area around the fireplace. Duke supervised the entire operation from his rug, tail thumping every time she walked past.
Now she's in my kitchen. Holding up a can of soup.
"This is what you've been eating?"
"It's food."
"It's sodium with a label." She turns the can. Reads the back. Makes a face that would be insulting if it weren't accurate. "You have eggs?"
"In the cooler."
She's already opening it. Pulling out eggs, a block of cheddar, half an onion. Her hands move with purpose. Practiced. She grabs the cast iron pan off the hook without asking where it is.
"You don't have to cook."
"I'm hungry. You're hungry. And if I eat canned soup for dinner, my grandmother's ghost will haunt both of us." The pan goes on the burner. "You got butter?"
Pointing at the cooler's second shelf, I lean against the doorframe. Watch her crack eggs one handed, dice the onion, grate cheese onto a plate. Rain hammers the roof. Thunder shakes the walls. She hums while she cooks.
The woman never stops moving. Since she walked inside, she has touched every surface, opened every cabinet, asked questions about the plumbing, the woodstove. Told Duke his ears are "perfect little velvet triangles" in a voice that made him groan with happiness.
"You're staring."
"My kitchen."
"Fair point." She flips the omelet without looking. Perfect fold. "So. You live up here alone."
"Yes."
"By choice."
"Obviously."
"How long?"
"Three weeks."
She plates the omelet. Cuts it in half. Slides one portion toward me. "What were you doing before?"
"Working."
"At?"
"Doesn't matter."
A normal person would stop pushing. This woman is not a normal person. She leans both elbows on the counter, chin in her hands, watching me eat with the patience of someone who has all night and nowhere to be.
"My last boss called me 'tireless.' Put it in my annual review like a compliment." She picks up her fork. Takes a bite. "Tireless. Like it's a good thing that I never stopped. Like running myself empty for someone else's company was a character strength instead of a warning sign."
The omelet is excellent. She knows it. Not waiting for me to say it.
"Three years I planned events for people who couldn't remember my name at the holiday party. Organized a gala that raised two million dollars. You know what my bonus was? A gift card. To a restaurant I don't even like."
Something loosens in my chest. Not at the story. At the way she tells it. No self pity. No bitterness. Just a woman who looked at the shape of her life, didn't like what she saw, and left.
"So you quit."
"Sold my apartment. Packed my car. My mama cried. My best friend Tasha said I was having a breakdown. Maybe she's right." A shrug. "But it's the first time in ten years I've eaten anything without checking my email first. So if this is a breakdown, at least the food's better."
We eat standing up. Rain pounding the windows. Duke migrating from the fireplace to the kitchen, positioning himself next to her left leg. She feeds him a piece of cheese when she thinks I'm not looking.
"He's on a strict diet."
"He's on a strict diet of sadness and loneliness. One piece of cheddar won't kill him."
The storm gets worse as time passes. She sits on the couch with Duke's head in her lap. The fire pops. Wind howls against the windows. She pulls the Rilke book off the shelf, flips through warped pages with careful fingers.
"You read poetry."
"Sometimes."
"My grandmother used to read Maya Angelou out loud on her porch. Every Sunday. Didn't matter if anybody was listening." She runs her thumb across a page. "Said poetry was the only honest conversation a person could have with God."
Quiet. The fire. The storm. Duke's breathing.
"She's the one who taught me to cook. Stood me on a step stool in her kitchen when I was five. Said every woman needs to know how to feed herself so she never has to stay somewhere just because somebody else holds the groceries."
A laugh escapes me. Small. Surprising. Feels unfamiliar in my mouth.
Jada looks up. Those brown eyes go wide. "Did you just laugh?"
"No."
"You did. You laughed. That was a laugh."
"It was a cough."
"That was a full on laugh. An actual laugh came out of your face." She's grinning now. Full wattage. The kind that could power a small town. "Your grandmother and mine would've gotten along."
Something dangerous is happening. Something I haven't felt since before the collapse, before the lawsuits, before I stopped being a person and became a cautionary tale.
This woman is sitting on my couch in a storm, talking about grandmothers and gift cards and poetry, and the empty cabin feels full. Not crowded. Full.
"My grandmother made terrible pie." Don't know why I say it. "Crust like cardboard. My grandfather ate it every Sunday for forty years. Never said a word."
"That's love."
"That's insanity."
"Same thing." She scratches behind Duke's ear. "My mama says love is just insanity with better PR."
Another laugh. Can't stop this one either. She beams at me and the tightness in my chest cracks. Just a fracture. A hairline. But enough to feel the air come through.
"You should smile more."
"Don't push it."
"Too late." She pulls the blanket around her shoulders. Duke groans and repositions. "I push everything. Ask anyone who's met me. Tasha says I could start a conversation with a fire hydrant."
"I believe it."
We sit for another hour. She talks about the road trip.
A diner in Missoula where she ate the best pie of her life.
A motel in Cranbrook where the shower ran cold for twenty minutes before turning scalding with nothing in between.
A gas station in Fernie where the attendant's dog wore a bandana and she spent fifteen minutes photographing it.
She talks. I listen. And every story reveals a piece of her that I'm filing away without meaning to. Her loyalty to Tasha. The way she calls her mother "Mama" with a softness that tells me everything about where she comes from. The way she laughs at her own jokes before the punchline lands.
Around ten, she yawns. Covers her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Sheets and a pillow are in the hall closet."
"Beck." First time she's said my name. Offered it reluctantly when she said "I can't keep calling you Mountain Man, although honestly it fits." My name in her voice sounds different. Warmer. "Thank you. For letting me stay."
"Didn't have much choice."
"You had a choice. You could've let me sit in my car."
True. Could've. Some part of me, the part that hasn't been swallowed whole by the last fourteen months, couldn't.
"Storm should clear by dawn."
"Okay." She stands. Duke follows her toward the hall closet. Stops. Turns back. "For what it's worth? This is the best night I've had since I left Atlanta. Canned soup options notwithstanding."
She disappears down the hall. Duke's nails click after her. The closet opens. A pillow gets fluffed.
Then quiet.
Sitting by the dying fire, I stare at the embers. My hands are open on my knees. Relaxed. When did I unclench my fists?
The woman on the other side of that wall made me laugh twice in one night. Hasn't happened in fourteen months. And the noise she brings into this cabin, the talking, the cooking, the humming, it should feel like an invasion.
It doesn't. It feels like the first breath after being underwater too long.
That's the most dangerous thought I've had since I came up this mountain.