24. Kai #3
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“Then why did you call?”
“Because despite your ongoing attempt to pretend otherwise, it’s still your money.” She snorts a little as if explaining this is actually ridiculous.
“It belongs to the house.”
“Kai.”
“Renee.”
Her sigh carries enough amusement that I can picture the expression accompanying it. “Fine. While I have you, the back porch railing is finished and the electrician confirmed Monday for the new security lights.”
“Good.”
“And Marisol got her community college placement.”
That pulls me upright faster than the repair bill did. Marisol has been at the safe house for a few months now, and my patient during the difficult period of her life.
Getting into community college is the first thing she has chosen entirely for herself since leaving her husband. “She did?”
“Found out yesterday afternoon.”
A smile reaches my face before I can stop it. “That’s great.”
“She spent the first hour insisting they probably made a mistake.”
“Of course she did.”
“I told her official acceptance emails apparently make administrative mistakes now.
“Did that help?”
“For approximately thirty seconds.”
I laugh quietly. “Tell her congratulations from me.”
“You could tell her yourself.”
“I will.”
Renee’s voice softens. “She’s proud, Kai. She just doesn’t quite know how to be proud without immediately finding a reason she shouldn’t be.”
That lands somewhere familiar enough to make my eyes drift toward the window beside my desk.
“Then remind her she doesn’t need permission.”
“I already did.”
“Good.”
Someone calls Renee’s name on the other end, followed by the muffled beginning of another conversation before she turns away from it.
“I have to deal with something involving a donated sofa that apparently refuses to fit through the front door.”
“Sounds urgent.” I huff which for normal people would be a snort. For me it sounds like a huff.
“You joke, but there are currently four adults arguing with geometry.”
“Send me the revised estimate when you get it.”
“I will, and I’ll send the mold results as soon as they come back.”
“Thanks.”
There is a brief pause before she adds, “Also, you sound exhausted.”
“Apparently everybody has an opinion today.”
“Go to bed at a normal hour sometime, Blackwood.”
The call disconnects while I’m still deciding whether dignifying that with an answer would accomplish anything. I set the phone down and let the quiet office settle around me again.
The safe house has always been one of the easier things in my life to understand, even when the practical work surrounding it becomes an endless rotation of repairs, security upgrades, grants, staffing problems and houses that seem determined to discover a new way of leaking every six months.
The purpose itself remains simple enough that I never have to wonder what side of the line I am supposed to stand on.
People need somewhere safe, so we make sure they have it.
A pipe leaks, it gets repaired. A railing becomes unsafe, it gets replaced.
Someone needs a room, we find one. There is comfort in problems that can be named that cleanly.
Julia has never been one of those problems. She doesn’t need fixing, despite how often people before me seem to have treated her emotions as malfunctions that needed correcting.
She needed room to figure out which parts of herself belonged to her and which ones had been shaped around keeping everybody else comfortable.
Somewhere along the way, while helping her do exactly that, I managed to turn myself into the most complicated thing in her life. Impressive work.
A shadow crosses the doorway before Mara walks in carrying a paper bag, which she deposits on the corner of my desk without ceremony.
“Lunch.”
I look from the bag to her. “I didn’t order anything.”
“I’m aware.”
“Mara.”
“You’re welcome.”
There is no point arguing once she uses that tone, but exhaustion apparently has destroyed the last scraps of my judgment.
“I have food.”
She glances around the desk as though expecting lunch to materialize if she looks hard enough. “Where?”
“At home.”
“That should be extremely useful here.”
I lean back and give her a look.
She points at the bag. “Eat before your one-thirty. You’re already running on whatever happened last night and an offensive amount of coffee.”
Something in my expression must change because her eyes sharpen instantly.
“Interesting.”
“Leave.”
Her grin appears. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“That keeps happening today.”
“Mara.”
She laughs as she backs toward the door. “Eat the sandwich, Dracula.”
The door closes behind her. I stare at it for a second before pulling the bag closer.
Inside is a sandwich, an apple and chips, none of which should be remarkable enough to make me think of anything other than lunch, but the sight of actual food immediately brings back the note sitting on Julia’s kitchen counter.
Drink plenty of water, eat something that qualifies as an actual meal.
I lean back and laugh under my breath. Apparently I have become the kind of asshole who gives advice he needs his office manager to enforce personally. I eat the sandwich.