Chapter Four
It was late and I was at the kitchen table with the laptop, working through the city permits before Pete could pull the wall. The forms wanted ownership history. I had spent the last half hour pulling records from the county website, easier than chasing the title company at this hour.
I sat back in my chair and looked at the name.
Thomas Samuel. He had built this house and lived in it almost thirty years. Thomas was a name for a deed and a headstone. Samuel felt more like the man who had lived here.
“Hi, Sam,” I said to my kitchen.
And the house went quiet.
The refrigerator hum, a car passing on the street outside, all of it dropped to a muted hush. The room settled around me as if something in it had turned its attention to me.
I sat very still with my hand on the laptop.
Then I huffed a small laugh at myself, alone at my table talking to a deed, and went back to the form.
The feeling did not fade. It stayed with me through the rest of the permits, through the cold coffee. Soft. Constant.
I went up to bed with the company keeping pace. The cold was where it always was. The smell waited, sweet and warm. And the house, tonight, did not feel empty either.