Almost Loved

Ethan Bennett arrived in September with a cracked phone, a wedding band, and an apology he couldn't quite finish.

Clara met him in the hotel café.

He had been gone for years. Chicago first, then Seattle, where he wrote software and had a wife and a small son. Occasionally he sent money. Usually he sent excuses.

As children, he had been the one who stood in the doorway when Raymond started shouting.

Clara remembered that before she remembered anything else.

"I'm sorry about your job," he said.

"Thank you."

"I didn't know Mom would do that."

"You brought her back."

He looked down.

"She called. Said she was being kept out in the country. That she couldn't get home."

"Did you ask why?"

He turned his cup.

Clara waited.

"I know she isn't easy."

"She brought gasoline to my office."

He flinched.

Then he began talking about statements, charges, how old Lorraine was, how frightened she had been afterward. He wanted Clara to soften what she had said, to tell somebody that she didn't believe her aunt had really meant it.

Clara looked through the window.

Damian stood at the café counter, ordering cake she hadn't asked for. He had learned which days she forgot to eat.

"I won't lie for her," she said.

"I'm not asking you to lie."

"What would you call it?"

Ethan looked past her.

"Mr. Wolfe. Maybe you could talk to her."

Damian set the plate down.

"I'm her husband."

He sat beside Clara.

Ethan's hands tightened around his cup.

"We're family."

"Then try acting like it."

"Damian," Clara said quietly.

He leaned back, but his hand covered hers beneath the table.

Ethan looked at them together.

"Clara, please. Think about when we were children."

She closed her eyes.

He saw the opening and pressed.

"I stood in front of you. Every time. You remember."

"I remember."

"There were things you didn't know. Things I made sure you didn't have to know."

His voice broke.

Clara looked at him.

He slid from the chair to his knees.

People turned.

"Don't," she said, getting up. "Ethan. Please get up."

"Just this once. For me."

She gripped his arms.

His shoulders shook beneath the old shirt.

She couldn't get him off the floor without making a scene. She couldn't bear to leave him there.

"I'll tell them I don't want her coming near me," she said. "That's all. I'll speak to the lawyer. Now get up."

He held her hand as though she had rescued him.

Damian looked away.

Not because he was angry with her.

Because he understood, with sudden clarity, how many people knew exactly where to press until she gave them what they wanted.

***

That night, she couldn't sleep.

"I didn't want to do it," she said into the dark.

Damian turned toward her.

"I know."

"Then why did I?"

He put a hand against her shoulder.

She lay very still beneath it.

"You were kind to someone who once was kind to you."

"It didn't feel kind."

He didn't tell her she was wrong.

After a while, she turned into his arms.

He held her until her breathing slowed.

He almost let himself believe it meant what he wanted it to mean.

***

Ethan took Lorraine and Shelby to Seattle.

The peace lasted two months.

Then came calls about his wife, arguments, Lorraine visiting offices to complain about people who had insulted her. Raymond followed, was turned away, returned, caused another scene.

Ethan's marriage broke down. His work began to suffer. When his contract ended, it wasn't renewed.

By December he was back in Briarhaven, looking older than he had in September.

He came to the same café.

Clara was wearing a coat over clothes she had slept in. She had been awake until four finishing a drawing and had come downstairs without expecting anybody to see her.

Ethan looked at the food behind the glass.

She ordered him lunch.

He ate half before he started crying.

Clara watched his shoulders move, uncertain where to put her own hands.

When he could speak, she pushed an envelope across the table.

Three thousand dollars.

The balance from her commission.

"Go back to Seattle. Find work. Talk to your wife."

He looked at the envelope.

"What about Mom?"

"She's here. She's not going to starve."

"You'll look after her?"

"I won't go looking for trouble with her. That's what I can promise."

He pushed the money toward her.

"I need a job. Not charity."

"Then look for one where you can use what you know."

"Your husband has companies all over town."

Clara leaned back.

"No."

"You haven't even asked."

"I don't want to ask."

He stared at her.

She softened her voice.

"Ethan, you don't know those businesses. You're not going to be happy in them. You need your own life. Your wife. Your son."

"I could help you keep an eye on things."

"What things?"

"His money. What he does. You're married to him, you should know where everything goes."

"I know where to ask."

He glanced away.

Clara left the envelope by his plate.

"Take it. You can pay it back when you're settled. Or don't. Just use it for yourself."

Upstairs, she sat at the desk and opened the résumé she had been avoiding.

By evening she had revised it, assembled her portfolio, and written to Professor Whitmore.

Her portfolio looked smaller on the screen than it had in her imagination. She removed a student drawing she had once been proud of, restored it, then removed it again.

Damian came in for his keys and found her staring.

"Wrong line?" he asked.

"Wrong standard. Everybody else has done more."

He leaned over the chair.

"Everybody else didn't draw this one."

She looked at him.

He tapped the image of a restored doorway.

"That yours?"

"Partly. It was a team."

"Then say which part. Let them decide whether it's enough."

After he left, she rewrote the caption and pressed send.

His reply came before she had finished persuading herself not to expect one.

Come see us. There may be an opening at the practice.

She read it three times.

***

Damian came in carrying takeaway bags and the expression of a man who had good news.

"First phase," he said.

Clara looked up.

"Willowbend?"

"Construction package. Not the whole thing. Enough to get started."

She smiled.

"That's wonderful."

He set down the food, came behind her chair, and bent to kiss her.

"Say it again."

"You're unbearable."

"Not that part."

She laughed and turned to face him.

Over dinner, he told her about the meeting, the investors who had assumed he couldn't read a site drawing, the long afternoon spent listening to men explain work he'd been doing since he was seventeen.

"They use longer words," he said. "Same ground underneath."

"You should put that on your business card."

"Owen won't let me."

She poured him a little wine.

He watched her and smiled.

"Come work with me."

"I haven't learned how to run a quarry."

"You'll learn."

"Then we'd argue at work and at home. When would we rest?"

"I'd let you win at home."

"You don't do that now."

"I try. You're very bad at accepting victory."

She looked at him for a moment.

Then she touched his hand.

"I need you to take me to Westbridge on Monday."

His smile thinned.

"Why?"

"Interview."

He put down his glass.

"What interview?"

"A building-conservation practice. Professor Whitmore recommended me."

"You've got work here."

"One commission. This is a proper position."

He shook his head.

She slid closer, resting her chin against his shoulder.

"Damian."

"Don't."

She had learned exactly how soft her voice could go.

"My husband."

His hand stopped halfway to the glass.

She waited.

"That's cheating," he said.

"Will you take me?"

He closed his eyes.

Then he opened them and looked at her mouth.

"What time?"