16. Fran #2
“About six months in. We were lying in bed, and you were talking about your plans for the farm, and you said-” He stops, looks away. “You said wedding season made you feel like you were helping people start their happiest chapter. Even if your own chapter wasn’t going according to plan.”
I don’t remember saying that. But it sounds like something I would have said, in those rare moments when the night man emerged and made me forget that the day man existed.
“I’m surprised you remember.”
“I remember everything you told me.” His voice is quiet.
“I didn’t always know what to do with it, but I remembered.
Every night we talked. Every thing you shared.
” He’s still looking away, toward the fields.
“Those were the only times I felt like myself. The real me, not the version my family expected.”
“Then why-” I stop, not sure I want to open this door again. But the question has been living in me for months, and it needs an answer. “Why couldn’t you be that person during the day? Why did you shut me out the moment the sun came up?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. The piece of wood turns in his hands. I can see now that it isn’t the figure from last night. This one is older, the edges worn smooth from handling. A woman, her features rough, never quite finished.
“I was scared,” he says finally. “Of my parents. Of what they’d do if they saw how much you mattered to me.
” He stops, starts again. “My mother had this assistant, Nadine Holt. Worked for her six years, ran every charity event, knew where all the bodies were buried. One day Nadine pushed back on a donor list. Said it was unethical. That’s it.
That’s all she did.” He’s turning the wood over in his hands, not looking at me.
“Within a month, no one in their circle would hire her. My parents made calls. Said the right things at the right lunches. Nadine moved out of state because she couldn’t get work.
Six years of loyalty, and they just… erased her. ”
I wait, sensing there’s more.
“I kept thinking about your flower business. What they could do to it if they decided you were a problem. Who they could call, what they could say.” He shakes his head.
“So I shut you out during the day. Kept everything cold and distant when anyone might be watching. Thought I was protecting you.” He finally meets my eyes.
“But that’s bullshit, Fran. That’s me making excuses.
Because I kept doing it when no one was around.
I kept doing it when we were alone in our own goddamn house.
I didn’t know how to stop, and I didn’t try hard enough to figure it out. That’s on me. All of it.”
“It doesn’t erase what you did.” I meet his eyes. “But it helps, a little. Knowing the warm nights weren’t a lie.”
“They were the truest thing I had.” His voice is rough. “You were the truest thing I had. I just didn’t know how to hold onto it without hiding.”
He holds the figure out to me. “I made this about eight months in,” he says.
“I’d stay up late working on it, trying to capture something I couldn’t put into words.
And then I’d carry it with me, during the day, when I couldn’t be what you needed.
” He sets it in my palm. “I know that’s not enough.
I know a piece of wood doesn’t make up for months of coldness.
But I wanted you to have it. So you’d know I was always thinking of you, even when I couldn’t show it. ”
The figure is warm from his hands. I trace the lines of it, the worn edges, the face that might be mine if I squint.
“You carried this with you?”
“Every day.”
I don’t know what to say. So I just hold the carving, feeling its weight, thinking about all the things we didn’t know how to tell each other.
“Dr. Warren - my therapist - she’s been helping me see it,” he says quietly.
“I thought if I built enough things, made enough beautiful objects, that would count as effort. As showing up.” He looks at the carving in my hands.
“But furniture isn’t presence. Working with my hands wasn’t the same as doing the actual work. With you.”
A truck rattles past on the county road. Then I ask, “Dr. Warren - is she helping?”
“I think so. It’s slow, and painful sometimes, but I’m learning to recognize when I’m building walls, and I’m learning how to stop.
” He pauses. “She’s the one who suggested I give you space.
After the hospital. I wanted to chase you, demand answers, force you to talk to me.
She convinced me that would only make things worse. ”
“She was right.”
“I know.” He takes a breath. “I’m trying to listen more. To her, to Theo, to anyone who’s willing to tell me the truth about myself. I spent so long not listening that I forgot how.”
I turn the little carving over in my hands. “Can I keep this?”
“It was always meant for you.”
***
That evening, we cook dinner together again.
It’s becoming a rhythm, I realize, him in my space, helping with tasks he never would have noticed before, asking questions instead of assuming.
We disagree about how to season the chicken (I like more garlic, he thinks I’m going to burn it out), and for a moment it feels like the kind of argument that could spiral into something bigger.
But then he steps back, hands raised. “Your kitchen, your rules.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“You know this space better than I do.” He shrugs. “And you’ve been feeding yourself for three months without my input. I think you’ve earned the right to make garlic decisions.”
I add the garlic. He doesn’t comment.
After dinner, we end up on the porch again, watching the stars come out, the second night running, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.
“The Henderson wedding,” I say eventually. “Ten weeks out. Junie thinks we can pull it off, but it’s going to be tight.”
“What do you need?”
“Honestly? Someone to handle the logistics while I focus on the flowers. Deliveries, setup coordination, that kind of thing.”
“I can do that.” He turns to look at me. “If you want. I’m decent at logistics.”
“You’d help with a wedding?”
“I’d help with anything you asked me to.” He’s quiet for a moment. “And after the Henderson wedding, maybe we could… I don’t know. Do something that isn’t work. Together.”
“Like what?”
“Like whatever you want.” He shrugs, almost shy. “A drive somewhere. A meal that doesn’t involve oatmeal. Something normal.”
I think about it. Not a star-watching promise, not a someday-maybe. Something concrete, scheduled, real.
“After the Henderson wedding,” I say. “If we survive it. You can take me somewhere.”
“Deal.” He’s smiling now, small but real. “I’ll start planning.”
We stay on the porch until the stars are fully out, and when I finally go inside to bed, I carry the little wooden figure with me.