18. Edda #2
"Then I file the heritage designation paperwork in your name, and I walk away. I won't contact you again." No hesitation. No performance of thought. Just the answer, steady and final. "I mean it, Edda. This isn't a negotiation. It's me asking."
Something tightens in my chest, not pain exactly. More like pressure finding old edges.
My father comes to mind first. Then the summers I slept behind the shop counter, counting hours instead of sheep.
Three jobs at once. The way I learned to read overdue notices was like weather reports.
Every version of myself is built around the same rule.
Stay useful. Stay unclaimed. Stay untouchable.
Then Bennett.
The way he sets my coffee down first without asking what I want.
The way he held the ladder steady when I was on it too long, like he trusted my balance more than I did.
The way his hand went to his pocket in the car after the donor dinner, then stopped, as he had almost reached for something he never shows anyone.
I study him instead of my thoughts.
"This is hard for you," I say. "Asking instead of deciding."
"Yes."
"Sitting with an answer instead of controlling the outcome."
"Yes."
I nod once, slowly. "Good."
A flicker moves across his face. Not relief. Not quite hope. Something quieter, more fragile, like space opening where certainty used to be.
And for a moment, neither of us moves into it.
"I need you to understand something," I say. "I am keeping this baby. That is not negotiable. That is not up for discussion. I decided that before I walked into your office. I decided it again after I left. I will keep deciding it every day after this, no matter what you do or don’t do."
"I know."
"I need you to hear me say it anyway."
He nods once. "I hear you."
"And I need you to stop trying to fix things for me without asking first. Not just the baby.
Everything. The shop. Cassel. Whatever problem you think is next.
" I lean forward, holding his gaze steady.
"I am not a problem to solve. I am not a variable in one of your equations. I am a person who has been handling her own life since I was twenty, and I am very good at it. I don’t need you protecting me from things I never asked you to touch. "
"I know that too."
"Do you?" My voice stays even, but there’s an edge now, controlled but sharp enough to land.
"Because knowing and acting like it are not the same thing.
You have a pattern, Bennett. You see a problem, you fix it, you move on.
But I am not a problem. This baby is not a problem.
And if you are going to be in this, you actually have to be in it.
Present. Listening. Not three steps ahead, building contingency plans. "
He goes quiet.
The waitress passes, eyes flicking to our untouched cups before she moves on again, like she can feel the distance between us and decides not to step into it.
"I don’t know how to do that," he says finally. "I’ve never known how."
A pause. When he speaks again, his voice is lower.
"My mother used to say I’d try to manage the people I care about the same way I manage everything else. She was right. She always was." His hand shifts, like he means to reach for something out of habit, then stops and settles back on the table instead. "But I want to learn. If you’ll let me try."
The words land between us, careful but real.
Edda thinks of the medal he left on her counter. Not offered. Not explained. Just placed there like something he didn’t know how to hand over yet.
She thinks of how she closed his fingers around it and made him take it back.
And for the first time, she lets the thought form without pushing it away.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But the possibility of letting someone stand close enough to try.
"Thursday," I say.
He blinks. "What?"
"Thursday. Seven in the morning. You can come to the shop and help me install shelving in the expansion unit. The business loan came through last week. I bought the space next door."
His expression shifts, subtle but loaded. "You got the loan yourself."
"I told you I would."
"I know. I just—" He cuts himself off, then tries again. "I'm proud of you."
The words land harder than they should. Something quiet in my chest tightens, unexpected and inconvenient. I glance away before it shows too much.
"Thursday," I repeat, steadier now. "You can hold the ladder. Hand me tools when I ask. You cannot offer opinions on my inventory, suggest faster methods, or try to replace my equipment with something expensive and unnecessary."
"Understood."
"And afterward, if you manage not to irritate me too badly, we can get breakfast at that diner. You can tell me about your mother’s attorney driving two hours just to call you an idiot."
The faintest shift crosses his mouth, almost a smile.
"That sounds like terms," he says.
"It is not terms. It is an opportunity." I stand, leaving two dollars on the table for coffee I never drank. "Do not make me regret it."
I walk out without looking back. The bell chimes overhead, and the morning air hits my face, cool and sharp with the promise of fall. I breathe it in. My hands stay steady. My stomach, for once, doesn’t twist itself into knots.
I have three days before Thursday. Three days to work on the Peugeot frame and decide whether it is worth saving, whether the rust has eaten too far, or whether the bones beneath are still sound.
Three days to open the shop, close it, and keep building the thing my father handed me, and I have refused to let go of.
The door behind me opens again. Closes. Footsteps hit the sidewalk, measured, unhurried, like he is giving me space on purpose and still refusing to disappear from it.
"Edda."
I turn.
He is standing in front of the diner, hands in his pockets. Morning light catches the silver at his temples, and the faint tension in his jaw he is trying not to show. He does not step closer. He does not need to. He just holds his ground like the distance itself is part of the negotiation.
"Thank you," he says. The words are simple, but there is weight behind them, something careful, contained.
I nod. No smile. Still, something in my chest loosens, quiet and reluctant, like a locked hinge giving way.
"Thursday," I say. "Don’t be late."
I turn before anything else can settle between us and walk back toward the shop.
The Schwinn is ready for pickup. The Peugeot is waiting like it always is, like it has patience I do not always have for myself. The someday jar sits on the counter, and the coin he dropped into it catches the light when I pass.
I do not take it out.
I let myself register what it means that it is there at all, then keep moving.