Chapter 31 Monique
Much later, their food containers sat empty, and city lights pushed through the curtains. Monique lay with her cheek on his chest, tracing circles on his skin. “When do you think you’d move?”
“How soon do you want me?”
“Yesterday.”
He laughed, the sound vibrating under her palm. “I need to have some serious conversations with Deb and Avery, who will head up the Chicago program. I’m happy to come on in my same role. That’s where I think I’m most effective anyway.”
“The actual skills-building part?”
“It’s not just that, love, it’s how I get to use what I’ve learned every day. The conversations we’ve had at miter saws have been some of my most satisfying work.”
“How so?” She was raking her fingers through his chest hairs.
He stilled her hand. “You’re making it hard to concentrate.”
“Huh?” Monique looked at their joined hands resting over his heart. “Why do you do your best work at a miter saw?”
“The focus. When you’re measuring lumber, getting your angles right, when your hands are busy—if you’re skilled enough, experienced enough—your mind can focus on more than one thing.
That’s when real talk happens.” Maurice’s voice went soft, like he was remembering.
“A guy told me about his daughter while we were cutting baseboards. Had like a hundred and fifty of them to do, so it got to be an automatic kind of thing. But this brother, out of the blue, told me he hadn’t seen his daughter in twelve years.
He cried, but his hands never stopped moving. ”
He kissed her temple.
“Sometimes hard things are easier to say when you can’t look someone in the eye.”
Monique chewed on that for a minute. “Therapy over a miter saw.”
“Exactly. One of my guys called it that.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “They’ll talk about things while cutting lumber that they’d never say in an office. Something about working with your hands opens you up—creates space for truth.”
“You’re good at it. Justin texted me. He said y’all talked while you worked on the furnace.”
Maurice raised his eyebrows. “He did?”
“Said you told him his mother taught him what courage looks like.” Her voice went soft, and she didn’t say anything for a breath. “Thank you for that.”
“I meant it. And it’s what I do with the guys in the program too—help them see their own strength.
Teach them to measure twice and cut once.
How to read blueprints. How to use a level.
” He paused. “But really, I’m teaching them the same thing I’m learning myself—that it’s never too late to build something beautiful and lasting.
That your hands can create after they’ve destroyed. ”
Monique never knew that she loved a philosophical man, but when Maurice got deep and introspective, it did something to her.
“It’s where I belong.” He took a deep breath. “Deb knew that. That’s why Returning Home is structured the way that it is: trained therapists on the crew, as foreman or other leadership—like me—folk who’ve lived it. You gotta read people and deescalate quick.”
Monique propped herself up on her elbow. “When did she tell you? About wanting to send you here?”
“New Year’s Eve, when I was at the airport.
” He ghosted his hand down from her shoulder, where her port wound was still pink, healing.
Eventually, his hand traveled down her side and rested at her hip.
He drew circles on her creamy, dark-brown flesh there.
“I was trying to be all heroic and catch up to you, but I missed you by about eleven minutes. So, I figured out how to exchange my ticket to Newark for one to Chicago.”
“You didn’t?”
“Of course I did. Paid almost five hundred dollars to follow you.”
Monique looked shocked, and he laughed.
“Deb called while I was waiting, and I asked because I knew it upset you. She told me then. Told me some things about my mother too.”
Monique went still. “Your mother?”
“I think I told you when we first met, about how she’d work for Fairbanks off and on.
And Deb said she felt responsible for me.
When I went away, she kept trying to help my mom.
Said she felt guilty, like she didn’t do enough.
” His voice grew rough. “I always thought she was a nice lady with a nice family. Me and Tommie meeting was actually a fluke. Deb knew me first. When she learned I was ineligible for parole, she worked harder to get this program off the ground to help guys like me learn skills to build a life outside.”
He was quiet for a moment, just breathing. “I thought I’d earn my way in. Come to find out, I’m the reason there’s a door.”
Hearing this made the fragments of her understanding start to take shape. Guilt pinched at her chest, just a little. “Understanding that, does it change anything?” Monique asked.
Maurice thought for a breath and shook his head. “I don’t think so. But it changes how I understand what I owe.”
Monique stroked his face. “She loves you.”
He nodded. “She does. And she loves you too. She said Tommy and Lanie’s wedding was the match they needed to light a fire under us.”
“They manipulated us,” Monique said. “But they also believed in us. Believed we deserved this.”
“You forgive them?”
“I do.” She kissed him softly. “But don’t tell them yet. Let them sweat a little longer.”
He laughed. “Deal.”
She settled back against him. “So, Avery is handling administration?”
“Yeah. He’s already on the ground in Chicago—securing the building, working partnerships. I’d be doing field work. Working directly with the guys coming out, teaching skills, connecting them with resources.” He paused. “Same work I do now. Just here. With you.”
“With me,” she repeated, testing the words. “In my house that needs fixing.”
“Which I noticed.”
“With my kids who scheme with my aunts.”
“Who I like very much.”
“With my cancer that could come back.”
“Which we’ll face together if it does.”
She turned to look at him, this man who’d bought a last-minute ticket to follow her home. Who’d fixed her furnace and won over her children and showed up at a shiva because she shouldn’t have to grieve alone.
“Mo?”
“Hmm?” He turned to look at her.
“I love you.”
He went still. “Say that again.”
“I love you, Maurice Martin. I’m terrified of it. But I love you.”
“I love you too.” His voice was rough. “Have since Puerto Rico. Maybe before.”
“Before we even met?”
“Before I even knew what I was looking for.” He kissed her, slow and deep. “But I found it anyway.”
They fell asleep like that, wrapped around each other, making promises in the dark that they’d spend the rest of their lives keeping.
Maurice
When Maurice woke hours later, dawn creeping through the curtains, Monique was still asleep in his arms. Her face was peaceful. Younger. The worry lines smoothed.
He watched her breathe. In. Out. Alive. This was what he’d flown a thousand miles for. Not grand gestures. Not dramatic reunions.
This. The ordinary miracle of her breathing beside him. Trusting him enough to sleep.
He thought about the Chicago program waiting for him. The guys he’d work with—men like him, trying to figure out how to build lives after the system had tried to break them. Conversations over power tools. Truths told while hands stayed busy. Homes built one careful measurement at a time.
Outside the window, Chicago was waking up. The city where he’d build his new life. Where he’d learn the rhythm of her streets, the cadence of her seasons, the architecture of her love.
Somewhere in Newark, Deb and Don were probably smiling, their scheme complete.
He’d call them later. Thank them. Tell them he understood now—that sometimes love requires a push from people who see what you can’t see yourself.
He thought about the Turners too. Richard and his phone.
Sunny filling the silences. Maurice hoped they’d find their way.
He understood now what it cost to be absent from someone who didn’t just want you but needed you.
Monique stirred, eyes fluttering open. She smiled when she saw him watching. “Morning,” she whispered.
“Morning, beautiful.”
“You’re still here.”
“Always,” he said. “I’m always here.”
She reached up to touch his face, her palm warm against his cheek.
“Six weeks?”
“Maybe less if I can swing it.”
“Spring in Chicago. You and me.”
“You and me,” he confirmed. “Building something.”
“Something that lasts.”
“Something that lasts,” he agreed.
In a generic hotel room with highway views and paper-thin walls, Maurice Martin didn’t check his watch or mark the time. He let himself be exactly where he was.
He lay in the quiet with Monique breathing beside him.
For the first time in his life, the silence and stillness brought calm.
It enveloped him, making his eyelids heavy. He didn’t fight it.