Chapter 4 A Different Kind of Man #3
I turn to leave and he calls after me. "Brook. Thank you for taking care of these records. A lot of municipalities just let their oldest documents deteriorate because preservation isn't a priority. It's obvious you care about this work."
"I do," I say. "More than most people probably realize."
"I can tell."
I walk back across the street to City Hall carrying nothing but the empty cart.
The morning is warm. The sky is clear. I feel something I haven't felt in over a week.
Not happiness exactly. Something smaller and quieter than that.
Just a sense that the day was worth getting through.
That one conversation with one person who seemed genuinely interested in the same things I care about was enough to remind me that the world is bigger than my broken relationship.
I spend the rest of Friday working and trying not to think about Kirk.
He's sent two more texts. I delete both without reading them.
At five o'clock I drive home and change into comfortable clothes and go outside to work on the garden bed along the back fence.
I dig in the dirt with my hands and pull weeds and spread new soil around the base of the tomato plants.
The physical work feels good. Simple and productive.
When I come back inside I shower and eat a sandwich and sit on the couch with a book I've been meaning to read for months.
For the first time in over a week I actually manage to read three chapters without my mind wandering back to Kirk or the savings account or the credit card statements sitting in a folder on my kitchen table.
The weekend passes quietly. I work in the garden on Saturday morning.
I visit my mother in the afternoon. She makes me lunch and we sit on the porch swing and talk about everything except Kirk.
On Sunday I go to the hardware store and buy new soil and fertilizer for the garden.
I reorganize the spare bedroom and put Kirk's boxes in the closet where I don't have to look at them.
Monday is routine. Work. Records requests. Archive inventory updates. Roger reads me another passage from the 1960s council minutes and provides historical commentary that I pretend to tolerate but actually enjoy.
Tuesday morning I load three more boxes of records onto the cart and push them across the street to the County Archives.
Ross is at the worktable again. Same flannel shirt. Same cotton gloves. Same careful focus on whatever document he's examining. He looks up when I come in and his face relaxes into a genuine smile.
"Right on time," he says. "I just finished the assessment on your first batch. Do you have a few minutes? I'd like to walk you through what I found."
I have a few minutes. I have nowhere I need to be except here doing exactly this work. "I'd love to see what you found."
We spend the next hour together going through his assessment.
He shows me each document and points out areas of concern.
Foxing on the older deeds. Brittleness in the council minutes.
A plat map from 1903 that has a small tear along the left margin.
He handles each piece with the same steady care.
Gloved hands. Slow movements. Patient explanations of what each type of damage means and how it can be treated.
I ask questions and he answers them thoroughly. Not in a lecturing way. In a conversational way. He seems to genuinely enjoy talking about this work and he seems equally interested in hearing about my experience managing the city's records.
"You've done a remarkable job with what you have," he says as we're finishing up. "The storage conditions at City Hall aren't ideal but the organizational system you've put in place has probably saved a lot of these documents from much worse deterioration."
"Thank you. I've tried to do the best I can with the resources we have."
"It shows."
I stack the new boxes on the receiving shelves and turn to leave. Ross walks me to the door.
"Same time Thursday?" he asks.
"Thursday works."
"Great. And Brook, if you ever want to grab a coffee after work some time, there's a good place on Third Street. No pressure. Just if you ever want to talk more about the project or anything else."
The offer catches me off guard. Not because it's unusual.
People get coffee together all the time.
But because the way he says it is so easy and unpressured that I almost miss it entirely.
He's not asking me on a date. He's not pushing anything.
He's just offering. The way a decent person offers something small and genuine without expecting anything in return.
"I'll think about it," I say. "Thank you."
"Take your time."
I walk back across the street. The morning is bright and I can feel the warmth of the pavement through my shoes.
I realize I'm looking forward to Thursday already.
Not because of Ross specifically. Because of the project.
Because of the work. Because having something to care about besides my own heartbreak feels necessary right now.
But also a little bit because of Ross.
I push the thought aside and go back to work.