Chapter 15 The Last Conversation #2
That was the last time I will ever speak to Kirk Reed about our relationship.
I know this the way I know that winter follows autumn and that records need preserving and that the coffee at Barlow's is better than anywhere else in town.
With certainty. Without doubt. It's done.
Really done. Not just legally or financially.
Emotionally. The last thread between us has been cut and what's left on my side is clean and light and free.
I take a breath. Then I turn around and walk back into City Hall.
Amanda is standing inside the lobby door. She's been watching the entire conversation through the glass. Her face is tense and her eyes are bright.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"I'm okay."
"What did he say?"
"He apologized. For real this time. He told me he lost everything. His job is in trouble. His credit is gone. The truck is gone. Kallie had the baby and won't speak to him."
"Do you feel bad for him?"
I think about it honestly. "A little. Not enough to change anything. But a little. He's a person who made terrible choices and now he's living with the results. That's sad. It doesn't make it my problem. But it's sad."
Amanda nods. "You're a better person than I am."
"No I'm not. I'm just a person who spent nine years with him and can't erase every feeling I ever had about him just because the relationship ended badly."
"That's called maturity, Brook. And it's one of the reasons I love you."
We walk back to our desks. I sit down in the Records Department and Roger looks at me with a question on his face. I shake my head gently and he goes back to his filing without pressing. That's Roger. He knows when to ask and when to leave it alone.
I open the next file on my desk. A deed request from Henderson Title. Another property. Another piece of history. Another small task in the long quiet work of preserving the records that hold this town together.
My phone buzzes. A text from Ross. How's your afternoon?
I type back: Good. Really good. I'll tell you about it tonight.
Looking forward to it. I'm making dinner at my place. Seven o'clock?
Perfect.
I put my phone down and go back to work. The afternoon passes steadily. Records requests. Archive updates. A call from Reverend Kemp about the church preservation project. Roger reading me a passage from a 1975 council meeting about a controversial proposal to rename the public swimming pool.
At five o'clock I pack up my desk and walk to the lobby. Amanda is putting on her coat.
"You heading to Ross's tonight?" she asks.
"Seven o'clock. He's cooking."
"What's he making?"
"I don't know. He didn't say."
"I hope it's something elaborate. You deserve an elaborate meal tonight."
"Amanda. Every meal doesn't have to be a celebration."
"Tonight it does. Tonight you said goodbye to Kirk Reed. That's worth celebrating."
I drive to Ross's apartment. It's on the second floor of a converted Victorian house about three blocks from the archives.
Small and tidy with bookshelves covering every available wall and a kitchen that's barely big enough for two people to stand in at the same time.
He opens the door when I knock and he's wearing an apron over his button-down shirt which is something I've never seen before and which makes me smile.
"What's funny?" he asks.
"The apron."
"The apron is functional. I'm making chicken parmesan and the sauce splashes."
"You look very domestic."
"Thank you. I've been practicing."
We eat dinner at his small kitchen table with candles that he bought at the hardware store because he doesn't own proper candleholders.
The chicken is excellent. The sauce is homemade.
The pasta is slightly overcooked but I don't mention it and neither does he because we both know that the meal is secondary to the company.
After dinner I tell him about Kirk. About the apology. About the baby named Claire. About the car and the apartment and the probation at work. I tell him everything and he listens the way he always listens. Without interrupting. Without judging. Without offering opinions I didn't ask for.
When I finish he's quiet for a moment.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
"Free."
"Good."
"That's all you have to say?"
"What else is there? You did the hard thing. You heard him out. You said what needed to be said. And now it's over. I don't need to add anything to that."
I reach across the table and take his hand. "I love you, Ross."
The words come out before I've fully decided to say them.
But they're true. They've been true for a while now.
I've just been waiting for the right moment and apparently the right moment is a Wednesday night in his tiny kitchen with overcooked pasta and hardware store candles and an apron hanging on the back of his chair.
He looks at me across the table. His eyes are steady behind his glasses. His hand tightens around mine.
"I love you too, Brook. I've been waiting to hear you say it but I would have waited as long as you needed."
"How long have you known?"
"Since the history festival. Since you stood in my preservation tent and told a stranger where to find old maps at City Hall. I watched you light up talking about your work and I thought, I want to see that face every day for the rest of my life."
I laugh. My eyes are wet. Not sad. The other kind. The good kind that happens when something you've been hoping for turns out to be real.
We do the dishes together. He washes. I dry. We move around his small kitchen the way people do when they're comfortable in each other's space. He knows where I'll set the towel. I know he'll leave the sponge in the sink.
I think about standing in a different kitchen months ago.
Kirk's kitchen at my house. Moving around each other the same way.
But this is different. This isn't routine or habit or the muscle memory of a relationship that has gone stale.
This is choice. Every moment of this evening is a choice made freely by two people who want to be exactly where they are.
I stay the night. We fall asleep in his narrow bed with his arm around my waist and his face against my hair. The room smells like old books and wood polish and the faint lingering aroma of chicken parmesan. It's small and warm and his and mine and ours.
In the morning I drive home to change before work. The streets are quiet. The trees are turning. The season is shifting and so am I. Into something new. Something permanent. Something I built with my own two hands out of the rubble of everything that came before.
She's right. Amanda is right. It is worth celebrating.
Not because I said goodbye to Kirk. Because I said I love you to Ross.
Because I meant it. Because he said it back.
Because love isn't supposed to be exhausting and complicated and full of doubt.
It's supposed to be this. Chicken parmesan on a Wednesday night in a tiny kitchen with the right person.
The Brook Walker who spent nine years avoiding conflict and swallowing her feelings and hoping things would get better on their own is gone.
And she is not coming back.