“Hmm,” I say, but I notice Dad’s breathing is deeper, and his eyes are closed. I lean back in my chair, wince at the loud creaks it makes in the room.
My dad looks so small in his bed, which doesn’t make sense, because at six-three, he’s still exactly my height, and he’s in good shape from working the way he does. I wonder if it’s something about being back in this house, about how when I left eleven years ago, I was still so used to being a kid, used to seeing everything, including him, as bigger than me. It’s not that I never make it back here—I do, at least twice a year, and Dad comes out to see me maybe once every two years. But knowing I’m going to be sticking around for a while has changed my perspective, I guess.
“Stop staring at me,” he says, his eyes still closed.
“Thought you were sleeping.”
“I don’t want an audience. Go to bed; you’re annoying me.”
I chuckle—this is my dad’s familiar, cheerful gruffness. I stand, looking over things one last time, making sure there’s water by the bed, that there’s a pillow under his elbow, that his sling is in the right position.
I swallow a sudden surge of emotion. It’s hard not to see this fall as some kind of turning point, some kind of moment of reckoning that means Dad and I have to start talking seriously about what happens in his future. He’s only sixty, sure, and even though he’s got no plans to retire, his recovery from this is going to slow him down.
Thinking about that now, after the day I’ve had—after the week I’ve had, really—feels too exhausting, and anyways, I’m no help to Dad if I’m too tired to see things clearly. I flip off the light and head down to my room, resolved to apply the rest of my mental energy for the night to thinking through what I’ve got going on with Beaumont, with Jasper, with E.R. Averin. Doing a job here will be a good distraction, will help keep me balanced while I take care of Dad.
But I still switch on the monitor and set it on my nightstand, listening to Dad breathe until I fall into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter 3
Kit
Monday night, tired from the weekend of unpacking and a long day of work, I’m alone in the house, eating takeout at my dining room table that’s still got a few unpacked boxes stacked on top. It sounds depressing, but for a girl who’s never had a place to call home, right now it feels perfect. I’m happily paging through my favorite issue of the city’s weekly alternative newspaper, which I’ve picked up religiously every Monday since I first moved here. This is the best issue, a once-a-year summary that details what locals have voted as their trusted favorites—everything from eyebrow threaders to heart surgeons. I have this dream—it’s ridiculous, really—that someday I’ll know enough about this place to call myself a longtime local. To be able to recommend my favorite burger joint or mechanic or dermatologist.
Right now, sitting in my historic house in the neighborhood I’d long ago picked out as my favorite, I feel one step closer. I’m a local somewhere! It feels so good that I laugh a little, the sound echoing in the still bare-walled house.
It’s the echo that motivates me to get to work on a little more unpacking. Zoe and Greer had been champions all weekend, helping me settle the most important rooms—the kitchen, my bedroom, the bathroom upstairs. But I’d put off the dining room, eager to work on this by myself. In here is one of my favorite features of the house, built-in china cabinets with arched glass doors on top, cabineted shelving below. Unlike the rest of the house, these look like they’ve been recently tended to—a fresh coat of white paint on each, the shelving sturdy and clean.
But as I unwrap a few of the cups and saucers and serving pieces I have, it becomes painfully clear that these are neither nice enough, nor copious enough, to fill out those shelves. It’s not as if I have family heirlooms for this house. Even if such things existed in my family, my dad would’ve hocked them long ago for money. It all looks a little sad in there, actually, and I’m hit with a stab of nagging doubt. You should’ve bought a condo. You don’t have anything to fill this place up with. You’re not any good at making a house a home.
It feels a little cold, a little lonely in here now. I wish I could call my brother. I think he might be the only one who could possibly understand how I’m feeling, the growing pains of settling somewhere permanent, but his last email said he’d be unreachable by phone for the next couple of weeks, a refrain he’s been using more often than usual in the last few months, ever since I first tried to talk to him about what I want to do with the rest of my winnings. It’s hard to think about Alex, about Alex avoiding me because of the lottery, a pebble in my shoe I can’t seem to get rid of.
The china cabinets I’d so admired look too stark now, too white. Plus, they’ve got these modern, stainless steel knobs for handles, an obvious replacement that doesn’t fit the aesthetic of the house, deadening all the historicity of those built-ins.
And it’s this—musing on my boring cabinet knobs—that makes me think of him. Of the package I received at work today.
Marti, our department secretary, had delivered it when I was taking a late lunch—basically, this means I was stuffing trail mix in my mouth while doing data entry at my desk. Marti is what Zoe calls my BFAW, my best friend at work, which is absolutely true, and probably was even when I was a grad student here. There was definitely a dearth of women in my department, but it wasn’t just shared chromosomes that drew me to Marti—she was hilarious and gave exactly zero shits about what people thought of her, and had no problem checking the egos of some of the more notorious faculty.
She’d come in, holding out a cushioned manila envelope to me, her eyebrows raised suspiciously. “Mail call. Some tall drink of water brought this to me, asked me to get it to you.” She makes the same sound she makes when she eats one of the Reese’s cups from the bowl I keep on my desk, a sort of mm, mmm, MMM! exclamation. “I got a hot flash looking at him, and he’s not even my type.”
Ben Tucker, I’d thought immediately, and I’d tried to look casual as I swiped the package from her. My name—at least the name I publish under, E.R. Averin—was printed across the front, but there’d been nothing else to indicate the sender. “Okay,” I’d said, setting it down on my desk, which was a mistake, because however well I’ve kept the secret about my lottery win from everyone I work with, I’m a soft touch when it comes to gossip of the relationship variety, and me not being curious about some hot guy hand-delivering me a package was very unusual behavior.
She’d crossed her arms and opened her mouth to speak, but I’d been saved by the bell, or, at least, by Dr. Harroway sticking his head in my office to tell Marti he’d broken the copier, again. The man does not understand why you can’t put staples through the feeder tray, I swear to God. She’d narrowed her eyes at me, snagged a Reese’s cup, and mouthed Later at me with what was, frankly, a disconcerting level of seriousness.
I’d waited until I was sure she was down the hall, then closed my door to open the package. Inside had been three brushed-brass file cabinet handles, exactly matching the two remaining I had on the lab cabinet, a business card, and a note:
These should fit your cabinet—Shaw Walker, 1959. The university used to order all their furniture from them.
I was the worst kind of incompetent on Friday, and I am sorry. Currently making my way through your very impressive backlist, Ms. Averin. You will not hear from me or anyone at Beaumont until I have a better, shall we say, “handle” on things.
With apologies,
Ben Tucker
Damn, I’d thought. Very good apology.
I’d put the handles on the cabinet before I’d left work, a little huffy, actually, that they’d fit so perfectly. But I’d tucked Ben’s note and business card into my jeans pocket.
I take it out again now, wondering how he found file cabinet handles from 1959. Okay, I might also be thinking