45
As Grant stepped out of the truck, the red door opened and the old dog hobbled out to greet him, her wrappings gray in the dusk. He walked up to the stoop and halted. Maria stood in the partial opening, one hand on the door and one on the jamb, as if the matter of his admittance were still in question.
“I’m late,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She made him stand a moment longer, the canvas tool bag in his grip like an overnight bag, and then smiled and swung open the door. “Don’t be,” she said. “We’re not on any kind of schedule here.”
He pawed at the welcome mat with his boots and stepped in, passing near her and into the scent of her, a brief miscellany of perfume and cooking
and wine.
“Do you want to give me your coat?”
He glanced down at the old canvas jacket and brushed at it.
“The only other jacket I have makes me feel like I’m going to my own funeral.”
“I love this jacket. But you’ll get hot if you keep it on.”
“Maybe I’d better see about that door first. Unless dinner is ready.”
“There’s time. But Grant, honestly, I’ll feed you either way, you have
my word.”
“And I gave you mine.”
She led him to the back of the house, through the kitchen—the smells of seared garlic and bubbling meat sauce and baking bread bringing his stomach alive—and into the small utility room.
“Can I get you something to drink? Glass of wine?”
Behind her the dog plopped with a grunt to the kitchen floor to watch him.
“Damn,” Grant said. “I forgot the wine.”
She shook her head and pressed two fingers to her breastbone: “Italian, remember? If the sheriff saw my stash, he’d arrest me. I’ll pour you a glass.”
“I’d better not. Not yet. I’ve got some sharp tools here.”
He unbolted the back door and lifted on the knob and jerked the door open, rattling the old pane of glass.
“Can I help?”
“No, ma’am.”
She stood watching him.
“I wouldn’t mind the company, though,” he said. “Unless you’re needed in the kitchen.”
She gave a kind of glance over her shoulder. “I think they’ve got it under control. I’ll just grab my glass.”
The door sagged from its hinges and he shut it again and studied the gaps. Then he collected hammer and screwdriver from the bag and tapped the hinge pins from their thick paint encasements and lifted the door free and set it edgewise on the floor. The cold dusk poured into the house.
“I’ll try to be quick,” he said.
“No, take your time.”
He began backing out the old slot-head screws, and while he worked he told her why he was late: it was because he’d caught Emmet up on a ladder chipping at gutter ice with a screwdriver, and he’d spent about an hour talking the old man down, and then he’d gone up and finished the job, and then spent more time getting the old man inside and making sure he was in for the evening.
He looked up from his work, and Maria looked up—she’d been watching him, his hands—and she smiled. “He’s lucky you came along,” she said.
“He was doing all right.”
“I mean in general.”
“So do I.”
“If breaking your leg is your idea of doing all right.”
“It’s not that he doesn’t like help. He just can’t stand the idea of needing it.”
“He doesn’t like getting old.”
“He’s funny that way.” Grant unrolled the chisel bib atop the dryer and selected one and began shaping out the new mortises in the door edge and in the jamb, tapping gently and exactly with the Estwing hammer.
Maria sipped her wine. “I think he’s gotten younger, actually, since you’ve been around. You and Sean. There’s a light in his eye that wasn’t there before.”
“That’s the light of pure evil.”
She laughed. “The devil himself.”
“I’m serious. Not an innocent word comes out of that mouth.”
“What does he say?”
He dry-fit the hinge and picked up the chisel again and began teasing up fine curls of wood.
“He’s got a thing or two to say about this here,” he said. Not looking up.
“This here?” She would not help him. “What do you mean by this here?”
He brushed a curl to the floor and reset the chisel. “My coming over here. Over to the cafe.”
“Does he now.”
“Not outright. Never outright. He’s too sly for that.”
“I see.” She watched him. “Does it bother you?”
“Does what?”
“Him being so sly.”
“Nope.” He replaced the hinge and tapped it with the butt of the chisel and it sat dead flush to the wood. “Sean might, though. If the old man goes down that path.”
“What path?”
He rigged his cordless with a bit and predrilled for the new screws. “Oh, he was very sly today about Sean and Carmen.”
“Sean and Carmen?”
“My son and your—”
“Yes, thank you. What about them?”
“It seems those two mares went out for a walk today with those two kids on their backs.”
She lifted her glass and said into the bowl of it, “Does that bother you?”
“Does what?” Grant changed bits and looked at her. “Why should it bother me?”
When the screws were set he lifted the door upright and walked it to the jamb. The hinge barrels slipped together and he slid the upper pin into place and then the lower, and lastly he tapped the pins down and swung the door to with a neat and solid click. He tested it again, and as there was no binding he threw the deadbolt and put the tools away and took up the broom and began to sweep.
“Let me do that at least,” she said, but he shook his head. Cleanup was part of the job, he said, and sometimes the best part, although not this time. She asked him what was the best part this time and he smiled and said he didn’t know yet, but so far it was the smell of that food while he worked. Then he reconsidered and said no, it was talking to her while he worked, and she smiled, but it wasn’t the way she usually smiled.
“Listen,” she said after a minute. “I want to say something.”
He held the broom.
She’d not eaten anything but two Greek olives and she could feel the wine in her tongue and she could hear it in her words but she went on anyway. “Listen,” she said. “I know this isn’t exactly happy-couple land here. You know? I don’t know what it is but I know it’s not that. And I know that’s not why you’re here. In Colorado. You and Sean. And I just want you to know that I know it. Everybody knows it.”
“Everybody?”
She sipped her wine.
“What do they know?” Grant said.
“They know that you—” She met his eyes, and held them, and smiled, and shrugged. “They know that you aren’t here for us.”
Grant looked down on the meager pile of paint and wood chips at his feet, then turned to look out the old pane of glass in the door, but the night had come down and there was nothing to see in the glass but his own skewed face and the shape of the woman behind him.