Chapter 12
My house looked smaller with Claire in it again.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Her childhood was everywhere.
The pencil marks on the kitchen doorframe.
The chipped blue mug she painted at nine.
The crooked shelf she helped me install in the hallway, where she mostly held the screwdriver upside down and declared herself a carpenter.
She stood in the entryway and cried.
“I thought this house was sad.”
I set down her bag.
“It has been.”
“Because of me?”
“No. Because it missed you.”
She pressed her hands to her face.
Ethan arrived with takeout and no expectations.
Good man.
We ate lo mein at the kitchen table where Claire once did homework.
She barely touched hers.
Halfway through dinner, she said, “Raymond told me you kept Mom trapped here.”
I looked at the table.
“Your mother could have left any time.”
“Did she want to?”
“For years, I think she wanted someone else to blame for staying.”
Claire looked down.
“She said you made her small.”
“I built her a studio.”
“She said you mocked her art.”
“I framed her first gallery sketch in the living room.”
Claire turned toward the wall.
The sketch was still there.
Dusty.
But there.
She stood and touched the frame.
“I never noticed.”
“You were not supposed to.”
Her shoulders shook.
Ethan quietly cleared the plates.
I liked him more every minute.
Later, Claire went to her old bedroom.
I stayed in the workshop.
The suit pieces were spread on my bench.
I thought about throwing them away.
Instead, I took out my sewing kit.
I was not good with fabric.
Wood made sense.
Fabric shifted.
Tore.
Refused clean lines.
Still, I began.
At midnight, Claire appeared at the workshop door.
“You’re fixing it?”
“Trying.”
She stepped inside.
“Can I help?”
I looked at the sleeve she had laughed over.
Then at her trembling hands.
“Yes.”
She sat beside me.
We did not talk for a long time.
We just stitched badly together.
May you like
Sometimes repair begins ugly.
But it begins.
