Page 235 of What We Brave
"I love you too, Mom."
I hang up. Set the phone face-down on the desk Blake built me. In the room they gave me. Behind the door I closed so I could have this conversation without them hearing.
Next time. I'll tell her next time we talk.
It's what I told myself last week. The week before that. And the week before that.
The tile saw doesn't start up again. The house goes quiet except for Reid's voice drifting up from somewhere — talking to Blake, probably, or to himself, or to the delivery tracking page he's been refreshing all morning.
My life is on the other side of this door. Real and warm and waiting.
My mother's voice is still in my ear.
We just love people where they are.
I pick up my coffee. It's gone cold. Of course it has.
Next time. I'll tell her next time. It'll be fine. She'll be disappointed but — but what? I can't even picture her reaction. What do I actually think is going to happen? Do I even know what I'm afraid of? The anger? The silence? The way she has of saying "oh" like she's absorbing a blow and forgiving you for it at the same time?
"Laine!" Reid's voice blasts up through the floor, volume set to eleven. "Truck! Our street. This is not a drill!"
I laugh. Can't help it. Whatever's been pressing down on me shifts — doesn't leave, just makes room.
I set the coffee on the desk. Open my door.
One thing at a time.
The delivery guysare judging us.
They're trying to hide it — professional smiles, efficient movements — but I catch the look they exchange when Blake directs them toward the stairs going down.
"Through here," he says. "Watch the turn at the landing."
"We got it, man."
They do not, in fact, got it.
The mattress wedges itself halfway around the stairwell turn, and for a solid thirty seconds everyone just stares at it.
"Measured twice," Reid murmurs beside me.
"Six times," I correct. "He measured six times."
"And yet."
Blake's already there, grabbing the other end, tilting at an angle that defies geometry. "Lift your end. No —up. Like that. Now pivot."
The delivery guys follow his instructions with the slightly dazed expressions of men who've realized they are no longer in charge of their own delivery. Three adjustments, one near-disaster with the stairwell light, and the mattress slides through like it was never stuck.
"How did you—" one of them starts.
"Spatial reasoning," Reid says. "His superpower. Also his most annoying quality."
"One of many," I add, grinning at Reid.
Blake ignores us both, already directing placement in the bedroom. The platform is waiting — has been for days. He built it in the workshop, sanded and finished it, carried it down in pieces and assembled it in the room. Low profile, clean joints, simple and solid. Like everything he makes.
I helped him sand it. He'd handed me a block and showed mewhich direction to go with the grain, and we'd worked shoulder to shoulder for an hour without talking, and it was one of the best afternoons of my life.
