Chapter 2 #2
I tell myself I need a box of screws. Three-inch, Phillips, deck screws.
Low stock, absolutely. Definitely not an excuse to go to Springs & Bells, where Maddie might be waiting behind the counter, possibly making choices that would gut the heart of this town I’ve spent years pretending was just a workplace.
Nope. Nothing to do with that.
I point the truck at Main Street, at that green awning and hand-painted sign, and I don’t let myself notice my hands are trembling. Soot, I tell myself. That’s all.
There’s something about the bell at Springs & Bells Galore. It rings out clear, like glass, slicing through the background clatter of the store. I’ve heard it seven thousand times, but today it slices through me. Surgical.
The place smells as always: solvent and sawdust, with a persistent ghost of that one spill Drew made in the stockroom. Underneath that, something sweet and sharp: Maddie’s jasmine lotion, leaving a trail down every aisle.
Back in the stockroom, Melvin’s voice grumbles through the wall, punctuated by the metallic clatter of pipe fittings. Business as usual. I barely notice.
Maddie’s at the counter, lining up a display of drawer pulls, hands moving fast, mind somewhere else. Her pale hair’s pulled back, a smear of paint on her wrist like a badge of whatever project she’s survived. She doesn’t look up when the bell rings.
I could turn around. Come back later, armed with a better excuse. Instead I go right to Aisle 4, pull a box of three-inch screws off the shelf, and bring it to the counter.
She clocks me as I set the screws down. For a split second, she looks surprised, then she smooths her face into the smile she wears for customers: bright, bulletproof, not quite real.
“Jordan! Hey. Just, uh, picking up screws, I see. How’d Garland Street go? Was Mrs. Pelletier’s flue a nightmare?”
“Not bad. Squirrel nest, but nothing tragic.” I lean on the counter, arms folded, making no move toward the register.
“Great. She was on about drafts last week.” Maddie keeps lining up the drawer pulls, finish by finish, moving her hands as a shield. She’s not looking at me. I watch her anyway.
The silence lasts. Maddie straightens a price tag, then straightens it again.
“You okay?” I ask, deadpan.
“Yep.” She says it with the artificial cheer of a flight attendant calling turbulence “just a little bumpy.” “Just busy. Inventory next week. Melvin’s been…” She jerks her head toward the stockroom, where Melvin’s losing another battle with plumbing. “Melvin.”
“Mmhmm.”
Quiet again. Longer this time. Maddie sets down a drawer pull and lets go of the act. She just stands there, hand flat on the counter.
“I’ve been thinking about selling the store,” she says finally, barely above a whisper. “Maybe the house too. I’ve been talking to a real estate agent.”
I don’t even realize I’m gripping the counter. My knuckles bloom white.
“Say that again.”
She meets my eyes. Her gaze is cold lake blue, steely, with something wild fighting underneath—a look of someone at the cliff’s edge, calculating if the drop is survivable.
“I’m thinking about selling. The store. The house. All of it.”
“Why.”
“Because Sleighbell Springs was Drew’s home.
Not mine. I followed him here, Jordan. I stayed because we had a life, and then he died, and someone had to keep going.
But it was never…” She breaks off, comes back harder.
“Everything I touch here is his first. Store, house, garden. The town sees me as his widow, a stand-in for a life I can’t get back. I’m tired of being a placeholder.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I mean to sound harsh. Instead it comes low, almost gentle.
“It’s not bullshit. It’s the truth.”
“That’s your truth. Not the truth-truth.
” I uncross my arms, lean in, elbows planted on the counter.
“Last winter, school theater reno. Who ran point? You. The holiday window display that doubled traffic? You. Mrs. Hemsley comes in for hydraulic cement, and you hand her exactly what she needs. You didn’t inherit that from Drew, Maddie. You built it.”
She clamps her jaw shut, furious and scared.
“Being useful isn’t the same as belonging. I’ve been useful, sure. That doesn’t mean I belong.”
I want to argue, list all the reasons she’s wrong. But Maddie doesn’t respond to speeches. So I wait.
“Give me one month.”
She blinks. “What?”
“One month. To prove it. That this place is yours. That these folks are yours. That Sleighbell Springs moved on the minute you decided to stay.” I don’t blink.
“One month. Then if you still want out, I’ll help you pack.
I’ll load the truck. No guilt, no Melvin glaring out the window, just… clean break.”
She stares at me, working through disbelief and maybe some tentative hope. Her fingers rest on the counter. If I reached, I could touch them.
“That’s…” She shakes her head. “That’s absurd.”
“Probably.”
“And completely unnecessary.”
“Almost definitely.”
“And you don’t even know what you’re suggesting.”
“Nope.”
A beat, then another.
“One month,” she says, reluctant but maybe, just maybe, a little curious. “But I’m not promising anything.”
“I don’t want promises. Just time.”
She nods, sharp. It’s done. “Fine. One month. Starting now, since you’re here with your fake screw emergency.”
I pick up the screws. They’re feather-light, but the look Maddie gives me is the real weight: wary, annoyed, but something else alive behind it, maybe the spark of a smile.
“See you tomorrow,” I say, headed for the door.
“Jordan.”
I stop. Don’t turn.
“Thanks. For… caring. About the store.”
I nod, just once, because if I look back I’ll say something reckless, and we’ve used up our quota of honesty today.
The bell rings. Sunlight slams into me outside, and I walk to my truck clutching a pointless box of screws and a month to prove something I’m not even sure I believe myself.
It’s daunting, and it’s right, in the way that things with Maddie Weiz are always both.
I don’t claim to be honest. But sometimes it happens anyway, sneaks up and knocks you flat.
One month.
I can work with that.