Page 211 of What We Brave
The back door opens.
Laine comes out carrying water bottles and wearing an old flannel of mine that hits her mid-thigh. Hair up in that clip that's already losing. Gardening gloves on—floral print, brand new.
She bought gloves. For yard work. At a house that isn't hers.
Don't read into it. Don't make it something. She bought gloves. That's all.
Except my brain won't leave it alone. Because yesterday she dropped my hand like it was on fire, and today she's wearing my flannel and pulling on gardening gloves like she belongs here.
Both things are true. That's the part I can't make fit.
"Where do you want me?" she asks.
She's talking to both of us. But she's looking at me.
Checking. Making sure I'm still here. Making sure last night didn't break something she can't fix.
"Flower beds along the fence," I say. "Dead stuff pulled, soil turned. Hand rake's in the shed."
"On it."
She grabs the rake, heads for the fence line, drops to her knees at the first bed, and starts pulling dead growth. No arguments. No worries about getting dirty.
I know women can be like that. I just haven't known many of them. So Laine getting her hands dirty is really fucking attractive.
I watch her for three seconds too long.
Stop it. She's pulling weeds, not writing you a fucking love letter.
But my chest does this thing anyway—this tight ache that's been sitting behind my ribs since the market. Since she let go. Since she held on to Reid and let go of me, and I stood there and took it because that's what I do. I absorb the hit, keep the line moving, make it easier for everyone else.
Reid was right about that. In the kitchen last night. He was right and I hated him for being right.
‘Blake's going to forgive you in about ten seconds because that's what he does, and then he's going to go sand something in the workshop and never bring it up again. And you'll feel better. And he won't.’
Walked right through every wall I had. Made me stand there and feel it when all I wanted to do was pack it away and move on.
I don't know if I'm grateful or pissed.
Both. Probably both.
Reid comes back with the ladder and the hedge clippers, balancing them like a circus act. "Boxwoods are out of control," he announces. "I'm going in."
"Do you actually know how to?—"
"You cut the parts that stick out. How hard can it be?"
I give it ten minutes before it looks like something chewed on it.
I go back to the gutters. Wet leaves, winter rot, the smell of decomposition and standing water. I scoop it out by handfuls, missing the bucket more than once.
So sue me, I’m fucking distracted.
Shoulders, arms, back. The rhythm's good. Mindless. Keeps my hands busy. This is the shit about owning a house I could do without. But sometimes the busy work helps me deal with my shit.
Not today though.
"For about thirty seconds today, I was the thing she was ashamed of."
