Someone to Come Home To

Julian looked at the chair opposite her.

Clara didn't offer it.

Celia pulled it out for him anyway.

"Coffee?" she asked.

"Please."

"Hot?"

He nodded without looking at her.

Clara recognized the small, practiced smile Celia kept on her face while being ignored.

She had worn it herself.

"And you, Clara?"

"Nothing, thank you."

Celia went inside.

Julian sat.

"I heard you're at Whitmore's practice."

"Yes."

"My father knows one of the partners. I can put in a word."

Clara looked at him properly.

"Please don't."

He seemed surprised.

"It wouldn't hurt."

"I'd rather you didn't."

He leaned back.

For years, she had hoped he would open a door before she had to ask. Now that she had found one herself, he wanted credit for knowing the people on the other side.

She disliked how bitter that thought made her.

"You seem different," he said.

"People generally are, after a year."

"It hasn't been a year since we last spoke."

"Then perhaps I've been efficient."

His mouth moved, almost a smile.

Celia returned with coffee.

She set one cup in front of him and one in front of Clara despite her refusal.

"Your mother wants us back for lunch," she told Julian softly.

Then she looked at Clara.

The message was perfectly polite.

Clara felt the sunshine go out of the afternoon.

"Mom wants me to settle down," Julian said.

"Good luck."

He looked at her.

"You don't have to be like that."

"Like what?"

"We can have a civil conversation."

She glanced toward the café counter.

Damian was coming back with two drinks and a piece of cheesecake.

Clara stood.

"If you're getting married, I wish you well. You don't need to send an invitation."

Damian took in the table, Julian, her expression.

He put down the tray.

"Afternoon."

Julian rose halfway.

Damian sat in Clara's chair and caught her gently at the waist before she could move away.

"What's the hurry?"

"I want to go."

"We just got here."

She looked at him.

He drew her down onto the arm of his chair, his hand firm against her side.

It was too public. Too obviously a claim.

She tried to shift away.

"Damian."

"Tell me what I missed."

"Julian's getting married."

"Am I?" Julian said.

Clara turned toward him.

Damian's hand tightened.

She looked back at her husband.

"Don't."

He saw the anger then, and let his hand ease.

Julian picked up his bags.

"Enjoy your afternoon."

"We intend to," Damian said.

When they had gone, Clara took the lid off her drink and put the cheesecake into her bag.

"Let's go back."

He watched her.

"You said we'd look for clothes."

"I'm tired."

It was true. The strange, complete fatigue that came from being reminded of a person she had once tried so hard to be.

She had loved Julian. Worse, she had accepted the terms of being loved by him.

Remembering that made her feel foolish and ashamed.

She didn't know how to explain it without making the whole thing larger.

Damian carried the drinks back to the hotel.

***

That night he kissed her and felt how absent she was.

Not refusing him. Not angry with him, exactly.

Somewhere else.

He stopped.

"Clara."

She opened her eyes.

"What?"

"You're still thinking about him."

She looked tired.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know. I just don't feel very good."

He lay back.

The room seemed much larger than it had that morning.

After a while she fell asleep, one hand beneath her cheek, so easy to love when she wasn't looking at him.

He reached toward the nightstand for cigarettes he no longer kept there.

His hand stopped in the empty space.

At dawn he showered, dressed, and drove back to Briarhaven.

***

The next weekend he didn't come.

Clara told herself he had work.

The weekend after that, she told herself she had work too.

She opened their messages several times, wrote nothing, and put the phone down.

Damian did the same.

On the third Friday, he filled the trunk with food she liked and started for Westbridge before he could change his mind.

Halfway there, her message arrived.

Leaving for the courthouse project tomorrow. They need an extra pair of hands. I'll be away a while. Sorry this is late; everything changed this afternoon.

He pulled into a rest area and read it twice.

Then he drove on, delivered the food to the hotel, and slept in a room full of her things.

The next morning, he called to ask whether she had arrived safely.

***

Fieldwork was less romantic than Clara's university memories.

She measured rooms with numb fingers, carried equipment, labeled photographs, booked vans, found lunch for twelve people, and discovered that the printer always ran out of toner when the nearest shop was an hour away.

By evening, she could barely remember her own name.

She liked it.

Not every hour. Sometimes not even most of the day.

But a damaged stair, an unexpected trace of old paint beneath newer layers, a drawing that finally matched the building: those things kept happening.

She sent Damian a photograph of a carved stone doorway.

He replied, Looks cold. Where's your coat?

She sent him one of herself wearing it.

Better, he wrote.

They began speaking most nights.

At first he asked practical questions. Had she eaten? Was the accommodation decent? Who drove them to the site?

Gradually, she told him more.

A measurement she had got wrong. A senior architect who frightened her. Professor Whitmore correcting a drawing without making her feel stupid.

Damian listened.

Occasionally he said, "Come home. I can give you better work than carrying somebody else's tripod."

She laughed and told him good night.

He went to bed with the sound of it still in his head.

***

In April, the team needed documents and equipment collected from Westbridge.

Clara was sent back with two heavy bags, a folder she was warned not to lose, and mud inside both shoes.

Damian met her at the airport after midnight.

He saw her before she saw him.

Blue outdoor jacket. Hair tied back. Face thinner and browner than when she'd left. Looking around with a determined expression that lasted until she spotted him.

Then it disappeared.

She walked straight into his arms.

He caught her, surprised by the force of it.

"There you are," she said into his coat.

His throat tightened.

"Been here twenty minutes."

She laughed, a wet little sound, and didn't let go.

He took the bags from her.

"Where to?"

"Home."

"The hotel?"

"Home," she said again.

He looked at her face.

"You've got to hand these over tomorrow?"

She nodded.

"Then one night here. We'll go back after."

She accepted that with her head against his shoulder in the elevator.

In the room, he put her in a hot bath, found clean clothes, and ordered food while she soaked.

She emerged half asleep and tried to apologize for the mud.

"The shoes are ruined."

"Then we'll bury them with honors. Eat."

She ate three bites before falling asleep against him.

He sat there until the plate went cold.

***

They reached Bennett Row the following afternoon.

The courtyard smelled of damp earth. The first rose leaves had opened against their supports. Owen was at the kitchen table, and Vince came out of the back passage carrying a mug.

"Look who's remembered us," he said.

Clara smiled before she could decide whether to be offended.

That evening she unpacked, put her books on the shelf, and stood by the bedroom window.

She had missed this.

Not the house alone. The noises downstairs. Damian complaining that somebody had moved his phone. Vince laughing. Owen insisting the phone was exactly where Damian had left it.

For the first time, leaving a place had taught her that she wanted to return.

She went to bed with her hand resting against her husband's chest.

Near two in the morning, headlights swept across the ceiling.

A vehicle stopped outside. Another followed.

Two quiet knocks sounded at the door.

"Damian." Owen's voice.

Her husband was out of bed before the second knock.

Clara heard low voices in the hall, then footsteps moving quickly downstairs.

She waited.

Somebody called for Walter.

She put on her robe and opened the bedroom door.

At the foot of the stairs, a dark trail crossed the tiles and led toward the courtyard.

Blood.