Page 46 of Second Alarm
Me: Hanna.
Hanna: Just to — not to — I'm not — just to sit on your balcony.
Me: Hanna.
Hanna: Please.
I look at the text, then at the dark house. I think about all six of her rules. I think about rule three, about the specific worddisgustingcoming out of my best friend's mouth an hour ago ina bar full of our colleagues. I think about the weight of sitting on my balcony with Hanna Larsen on a Friday night while her brother is still back at the bar finishing his beer.
The weight is significant. It's also bearable, because I've just measured it against the alternative, and the alternative — not having her on the balcony — is heavier.
Me: Come over.
Hanna: Fifteen minutes.
Me: Ok.
I go inside, turn on the balcony light, and put the kettle on. Then I think about the kettle and what it means, and I turn it off. Then I think about the off kettle and what it means, and I turn it back on. I laugh one short laugh at myself, alone in my kitchen, because I'm a thirty-three-year-old firefighter who just let a kettle decide whether he was ready to be honest with himself.
When the knock comes minutes later, I open the door without asking who it is. Hanna is there in her work fleece and jeans, and her face has the specific clarity it gets when she's been crying and has finished crying and has walked up to the door on purpose.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I'm not coming in." She tucks her hands in her pockets.
"Okay."
"I'm going to sit down. With you."
"Yeah."
I sit in the chair. She sits next to me and doesn't touch me, and I don't touch her. The balcony light is on, the night iscold, and Mrs. Hallaway from next door is walking her terrier in the dark without seeing us, because Mrs. Hallaway's eyes aren't what they used to be.
"I'm sorry," Hanna says, eventually.
"It's not your fault."
"It's a little my fault. Because if I had just — stayed, if I hadn't — "
"Hanna."
"Yeah."
"Are we doing this."
"Doing what."
"The thing where we talk about it."
She exhales — almost laughs, shoulders moving. "No. Not yet." A beat. "I just wanted to sit here."
"Okay."
"Is that weird."
"Yes." I look at the dark street below. "It's okay, though."
