9. Hannah
HANNAH
Theo arrives Saturday at seven with a level so old the bubble has gone amber. He stands in the garden with his boots planted in the wet grass, studying the leaning boundary wall like a man greeting an old grudge.
"Footing's gone," he says. "Told them it would happen when they reset this stretch in ninety-one."
"You worked on this wall?"
"Helped reset it once. Your grandmother paid in pie and arguments." He sets the level on a flat brick. "Mostly arguments."
He moves slow but nothing about him is uncertain, and when his thumb follows each mortar crack, it feels as though the wall might answer back. We start at the worst section, where the bricks have bowed toward my side and the frost has shoved the base out of line.
By eight, Alaric comes through the gate carrying a coil of string line, and enough quiet authority to annoy me before breakfast.
"The bottom row has shifted," he says, without preamble. "If we stack over it, the wall comes down again by next winter."
"Good morning, then."
"It isn't safe."
"You keep saying that." I fold my arms. "You've said it about the staircase, the door, the back step, and now the wall. At some point a person starts to wonder if you just like being right."
"I like this house standing." A pause. "And the people in it."
He says the second part quietly, like he didn't quite mean to, and then he's already setting Theo's level against the brick, rolling his sleeves. I should send him home. Instead I hand him a mason's chisel. It bothers me how quickly that feels normal.
Gregory used to do this differently. He would arrive with concern on his face, leave with my checkbook and my opinions, having decided what was best for me somewhere between the driveway and the kitchen. I could never tell the difference between being cared for and being managed.
Alaric isn't managing anything. He asks which section I want taken down first. He waits while I decide whether to keep the original bricks in their same order.
When I say I want the wall rebuilt exactly as it was, even if it takes longer, he only nods and marks each one with chalk before lifting it free.
"You've done this before," I say.
"Once or twice."
"With walls older than this one?"
"More than a few." He sets the brick down with absurd care. "Older."
Theo snorts from the other end of the wall. "Don't let him fool you. Man stacks brick like he's asking permission from it."
"I stack brick," Alaric says, "like I'd prefer not to redo the work."
"That's what I said. Asking permission." Theo winks at me, and I notice Alaric almost smile before he buries it away. I've started collecting those twitches.
We work through the morning. They settle into a rhythm that surprises me, Theo narrating decades of the property's history while Alaric keeps the cord taut and resets the heaviest bricks as if weight is only a suggestion.
I watch how his hands move, he isn't showing off.
He's just patient, steady like that makes the whole garden feel less likely to collapse.
Lily wanders out around ten, hair in a knot, headphones around her neck, and surveys the half-dismantled wall.
"You're letting the weird neighbor demolish our garden."
"He's restoring it," I say.
"Restoring it," Alaric agrees, not looking up. "Hand me that pointing trowel. The small one."
To my astonishment, she does. She kneels at the toolbox, finds it, and slaps it into his palm like a surgical nurse. "You owe me. I have an entire list of things to repair."
"Such as."
"The back gate shrieks. The front step wobbles. Something in the shed smells disgusting."
"Make the list. I'll do the gate first." He accepts it like she's a foreman handing down a work order, and she beams at being taken seriously. He treats her seriousness as a fact rather than a phase. Most adults can't even manage that.
By noon my hands ache and there's grit under every fingernail. We get the lower course reset, level and stubborn, the bricks fitting back together with a satisfaction I feel somewhere behind my ribs. I step back just to look at it.
"That's better," I say.
"That's the footing doing its job," Theo says. "A wall's only as honest as what it stands on." He gathers his tools. "I'm off to feed the dog. Back tomorrow if the weather holds." He pats the nearest brick on his way out, a goodbye, and Alaric and I are the only ones left.
We tackle the bowed middle section together, and neither of us can line them alone without making the whole thing lean again.
He holds the string line while I set the next brick, his attention fixed on me.
He isn't watching to catch me failing. He's just staring, I can't figure out if it's admiration or caution.
"Use the flatter edge," he says.
"I've got it."
"You do." He doesn't say anything else. He lets me find the angle, and curse quietly when it rocks out of place, and only when I ask does he brace the low part with two fingers.
The final brick gives me trouble. I crouch beside the wall, damp grass against my shin, trying to guide it into place while keeping the mason's cord clear. I need the chisel tucked beside Alaric's boot, but it sits too far away unless I risk the brick slipping.
He reaches for it first. His hand closes around the worn wooden handle, then sets it into my open palm, and for a moment his fingers stay there, warm and rough with old work, beneath mine. We don't move a muscle.
There's dust on my cheek; I feel it, gritty, and he lifts his free hand halfway as if to brush it away. Then he stops himself.
"You should finish," he says, low. "Before the mortar sets."
"Right." My answer sounds too raw for brickwork. "The mortar."
I turn back to work the wall. Beside me, he holds the brick steady without releasing it.