HER: The Favor

Chet brings his toolbox. I find this almost sweet.

I asked if he could spare a minute to look at something in my office, and he has come prepared to be useful. A man with a box of tools has a lovely sense of purpose. You can see it in the way he stands in my doorway, waiting to be told what needs fixing.

“The cabinet,” I say, pointing. “It won’t stay closed.”

He crosses the room and crouches beside it. His shirt pulls across his back. I understand a few things about Sadie immediately.

“Which one?”

I open the door next to my desk. It stays exactly where I leave it.

“It comes and goes.”

He tries it twice. “Could be the hinge.”

“That’s what I thought.”

It isn’t. I hadn’t given the hinge a thought until this morning.

He sets his toolbox on the floor, carefully, as though he might be charged for leaving a mark. I tell him not to worry. Nothing in this room is so precious it can’t be replaced.

Except the work, obviously.

My phone lights up on the desk. I turn it facedown before he can see who it is. He notices. Men always notice the things you mean for them to notice.

“You must be glad to be home,” he says.

“I thought I would be.”

He glances up.

I smile to soften it. “Travel’s exhausting. Everyone wants something. A photograph. An autograph. A little piece of your time.”

“Sounds like business is good.”

“It is.”

I wait. He works a screwdriver out of a pocket in the box. A perfectly ordinary man doing a perfectly ordinary thing in my office. Sadie has probably spent entire mornings watching him do this. She knows which pocket holds what. She knows how he takes his coffee.

Two days ago, I found them working on her fence. Her cheeks were pink. Her hair was coming loose. She had dirt on her clothes and looked pleased with herself.

She looked pleased before she saw me.

That part has been difficult to forget.

“How’s the work at Sadie’s coming?” I ask.

“Getting there.”

“She likes having you around.”

His hand pauses on the hinge. Barely. I’m generous enough to look away.

“She’s good company.”

“She is.”

He tightens something. Opens the door. Closes it. I watch him discover that a job can be finished before he is ready to leave.

“Try that.”

I step beside him. Our arms touch when I reach for the cabinet. He could move. There’s plenty of room.

He doesn’t.

The door closes beautifully. It closed beautifully before, but I tell him he’s wonderful anyway.

“You make it look easy.”

“This one was.”

“I wish everything were.”

He smiles at that. I let my hand rest on his forearm, just long enough to make the smile change.

I could stop here. I could thank him and send him back up the lane. He could put his tools away and return to Sadie’s fence, and she could spend the afternoon mistaking proximity for devotion.

Then, when he disappointed her, I would be the one she called.

I’m always the one she calls.

“Would you like a drink?”

“I should get back.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

He laughs softly. He likes being caught. Most people do, provided you let them believe it’s charming.

“Water would be good.”

When I return, he’s standing by my desk. He has picked up a copy of my book. I can see the place his thumb holds open. The acknowledgments. Of course.

“Looking for someone?”

“Just looking.”

I hand him the glass and take the book. “You can have one, if you like.”

“You’d sign it?”

“If you ask nicely.”

He grins. I have seen that grin before, from the edge of Sadie’s yard. It’s easier to take from this angle.

I sit on the corner of my desk and uncross my ankles. Nothing dramatic. There’s no need. He puts the glass down without drinking.

“Does Sadie know you’re here?” I ask.

He looks toward the door.

There it is. His opportunity. He can say her name, pick up the box and leave. I would even hold the door for him.

“I didn’t think to mention it.”

“No?”

“You needed something fixed.”

“And now it is.”

Neither of us moves.

The silence is pleasant. I have spent enough time filling rooms with words. It’s nice, occasionally, to let someone else do the work.

He steps closer. I can smell sawdust on his clothes, faintly, beneath whatever soap he uses. His gaze drops to my mouth and returns to my eyes.

“You sure?” he asks.

I reach for the front of his shirt. “Yes.”

He kisses me carefully at first, with one hand on the desk beside my hip. Then I pull him closer and the caution goes. That’s what I like about this part. The moment someone stops pretending he only came to look at a hinge.

When I draw back, he follows an inch before he catches himself. His face has changed. I like that, too.

“Your husband?”

“What about him?”

He lets out a small, disbelieving laugh. Apparently there are questions he prefers not to have answered.

I smooth his collar. He watches my hands as though they have given him something to think about. They have.

My phone lights up again.

This time, I pick it up.

“Work?” he asks.

“Always.”

Sadie will be hurt. Of course she will. It would be worse to let her go on believing he belongs to her. She’ll look at him first, trying to make what she sees belong to some other explanation. Then she’ll look at me.

That is the part I want.

Lately, there have been too many things she hasn’t told me. She says she’s fine. She says she’s been busy. She smiles into her coffee and keeps something for herself.

She used to look at me as though I had the answer to everything.

I miss it.

Chet brushes his thumb along my jaw. I turn my face and kiss his palm, then lower my eyes to the screen.

I ask Sadie to help with the hotline.

Her answer comes before I’ve set the phone down.

Of course.

I send her one more message, telling her to let herself in. I’ll be in my office.

Then I put my phone where I won’t be tempted to look at it.