And her mother. The table went still just slightly. Evelyn shot her daughter a look. But Marcus had learned a long time ago that the question always came, and the only thing that made it worse was flinching from it. Her mother and I divorced 3 years ago, he said plain.
Lily lives with me. Her mama's got a new family up in Charlotte. She calls sometimes. He reached for his water. It's fine.
It's what it is. Sophia was watching him again with that same look. That's the answer people give, she said quietly. When they don't want anyone to look any closer. Marcus set his glass down.
He looked at her for a moment. Neither of them said anything, and the whole kitchen seemed to hold its breath. Evelyn frozen with the serving spoon halfway to the potatoes, the windchime tinkling faintly through the window. That's a hell of a thing to say to a man over pot roast, Marcus said finally. And Sophia, instead of backing down, instead of apologizing, held his eyes and said, "I've heard myself say it enough times to recognize it."
That landed somewhere deep. because he understood exactly what she meant. He understood that she wasn't calling him out. She was telling him she was the same. Two people who'd learned to smooth their whole lives into that one flat little word fine so nobody would look too close and see what was underneath. Evelyn wisely changed the subject, but Marcus didn't stop feeling it for the rest of the meal.
He helped clear the table over Evelyn's protests, and he was drying the last plate when Sophia came up beside him at the sink with a dish towel of her own. "You don't have to do that," she said. "Neither do you, touch." They worked in silence for a minute. The good kind, the kind that doesn't need filling.
Marcus was aware of her arm brushing his. He was aware of a lot of things he hadn't let himself be aware of in 3 years. Then Sophia sat down the towel and something in her posture shifted. Went a little uncertain, a little younger. "Hey," she said, "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure." She glanced toward the living room where her mother had settled into a chair with the television. Then she lowered her voice, and there was color rising in her cheeks now, and she looked almost embarrassed. "So, this is going to sound weird. I fix things for a living.
Weird's most of my day. She laughed under her breath. Okay. Okay. She took a breath.
I've got this apartment across town. I moved out of the place I shared with. She stopped, restarted with my ex a couple months ago, and I've been sleeping on this bed frame that's basically falling apart. One side's completely sunk down. It makes this awful noise every time I She caught herself and her blush deepened.
It's just it's broken. It's been broken for months and I keep meaning to deal with it and I never do. And I saw you under that sink tonight and I thought she trailed off and then she leaned in, dropped her voice almost to nothing close enough now that he could feel the warmth coming off her and she whispered, "Can you fix my bed, too?" The wrench, which he'd picked up out of habit to pack away, slipped clean out of Marcus Carter's hand, and clattered into the bottom of his toolbox. He froze.
For one full second, his mind went somewhere. It had no business going, and heat shot straight up the back of his neck, and every word he'd ever known left his head at exactly the same time. Sophia's eyes went wide. "The bed frame," she said quickly, both hands coming up. Oh my god.
The frame. The wooden. The frame. Marcus, I meant the frame. I know, he said too fast.
I knew. I knew that's what you meant. You did not know that's what I meant. Your face. My face is fine.
Your face is bright red. So is yours. I know it's red. That's why I'm She pressed both hands over her eyes and laughed, mortified. The words coming out muffled.
I cannot believe I said it like that. Can you fix my bed, too? Who says that? I'm a professional. I design hotels.
And Marcus, standing there in that warm kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder and his heart doing something it hadn't done since he was a young man. Marcus started to laugh too, not a chuckle. A real one from the chest, the kind he hadn't let out of himself in three long years. Sophia peeked at him through her fingers. You're laughing at me.
I'm laughing with you. I'm not laughing. You were laughing two seconds ago. That was a nervous breakdown, not a laugh. He shook his head, still grinning and crouched to latch his toolbox so she wouldn't see how much his hands were just barely not steady.
Yeah, he said. I can fix your bed. She lowered her hands. The frame, she said. The frame.
Just the frame. Sophia. He looked up at her from where he crouched, and something in his voice had gone quiet and even. I got it. I know what you meant.
She stood there looking down at him, still pink, still half laughing. And then something moved behind her eyes. Something that stopped being funny and started being real. And when she spoke again, the joke was gone from her voice entirely. "It's been broken a long time," she said softly. the frame longer than I've told anybody.
And Marcus, who fixed broken things for a living, who had spent three years learning to hear what people meant underneath what people said. Marcus understood right then, standing in Evelyn Brooks's kitchen with his heart pounding and his hands not quite steady that they were not talking about furniture anymore. They hadn't been for a while. Then I'll come by, he said, this week, and I'll take a look at it. Sophia nodded slowly.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay," he said. And from the living room, unseen by either of them, Evelyn Brooks lowered the volume on her television, folded her hands in her lap, and smiled to herself in the dark. 3 days later, Marcus Carter stood outside apartment 4B with his toolbox in one hand, and a feeling in his chest he hadn't had in a long time. He told himself the whole drive over that this was just another job.
Another broken thing. He fixed broken things. That was all this was. He almost believed it. He knocked twice.
The door opened and there she was. And Marcus felt whatever he'd rehearsed in the truck slide right out of his head. You came, Sophia said. Said I would. People say a lot of things.
Not me. He shifted the toolbox in his hand. I say a thing, I do it. You learn that fast about me, you'll save yourself a lot of guessing. Something crossed her face quick and gone.
That would be nice, actually. Not guessing. She stepped back to let him in. And Marcus walked into the apartment, and he saw right away what her mother had meant when she said Sophia moved back home. This wasn't a life.
This was a life in boxes. half unpacked months in like somebody had started to build something and then just stopped believing it was worth building. Don't judge me, Sophia said, catching his look. I'm not judging you. You've got a face. Everybody's got a face.
You've got a judging face. This is just my face, Sophia. I was born with it. Take it up with my mama. That got a small laugh out of her.
And he was glad because the laugh knocked something loose in the room and the air got a little easier to breathe. It's in the back, she said. The bedroom. The uh the frame. The frame.
Don't. She pointed at him. Do not start. I didn't say a word. You were thinking it.