I was thinking about your supply line if you want the truth. I bet a place this old's got half rotted plumbing behind these walls. Wow. Romantic. I fix things.
I'm not a poet. He was already moving toward the bedroom, and he heard her follow, and he told himself again one more time that this was just a job. The bed frame was worse than she'd made it sound. One corner had cracked clean through at the joint, and somebody he'd bet money it was her alone. At night, had shoved a stack of paperback books underneath to keep it level.
It hadn't worked. The whole thing sagged toward the wall like it was tired of holding anybody up. Marcus crouched down and ran his hand along the split in the wood. "How long you've been sleeping on this?" he asked.
"I told you. A few months. You didn't tell me it was this?" he looked up at her. Sophia, this thing's a hazard.
This corner goes all the way. You're on the floor in the middle of the night. You could have hurt yourself. I put the books under it. The books aren't doing anything.
They're doing a little. They're doing nothing. He said it harder than he meant to and she blinked and he softened it. You should have called somebody. 2 months ago.
First night this thing cracked. You should have called somebody. Sophia crossed her arms and looked at the floor. There wasn't anybody to call, she said. And there it was.
Marcus heard it land quiet the way the real things always came out. Not loud, not for sympathy, just a fact she'd been carrying so long, she didn't even flinch saying it anymore. He didn't push. He'd learned that much. You don't chase a thing like that.
You just leave the door open and wait to see if it comes to you. Well, he said, turning back to the frame. You called somebody now. Let me see what I got. He worked for a while in silence, and Sophia sat down on the edge of the mattress on the good side, watching him.
He was aware of her the whole time. He measured the split felt out. The joint checked the other three corners to see if they were fixing to go the same way. They were some of them. This whole frame was one bad night from collapsing.
I'm going to be honest with you, he said. This corner I can fix good as new, but the rest of it's cheap wood and it's dried out and it's going to keep breaking on you. Piece by piece you fix one another goes. So it's hopeless. didn't say that. He sat back on his heels.
I said, "The frame's cheap. I can reinforce it. Brace the joints. Run some real hardware through it. Put a center support under the middle so it's not all riding on the corners.
Won't be pretty, but it'll hold. You'll get years out of it." Sophia looked at him for a long moment. "That's a lot of work for a bed you thought I should throw away. I never said throw it away.
You said it was cheap. Cheap's not the same as worthless." Marcus wiped his hands on the rag. A lot of things are cheap when you get them. Doesn't mean you give up on them the first time they crack.
Means you figure out how to make them stronger than they started. The words came out before he'd thought about them. And he heard how they sounded a half second too late. And he saw Sophia hear it, too. Something moved behind her eyes.
You're not talking about the bed, she said. I'm talking about the bed. Marcus, I'm talking about the bed, Sophia. But he couldn't quite hold her eyes when he said it, and she saw that, too, and she let it go, but he could tell she'd filed it away somewhere. He went out to the truck for the hardware he needed.
And when he came back, she'd made coffee cups, and she handed him one without asking how he took it, and it was exactly right. Black strong, the way his grandmother used to make it. He didn't ask how she knew. Some people just know things about other people. he'd stopped questioning it. "So, tell me about the ex," Marcus said.
And he saw her whole body go still. "You don't have to, but your mama started to say something at supper the other night, and you shut her down quick, and now I'm 3 ft from a bed you've been afraid to sleep in the middle of for 2 months, and I'm putting some things together." Sophia sat back down on the mattress. She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup and stared into it. His name's Damon, she said finally.
Okay. We were together 4 years. I met him right when my career was taking off. I was doing good, Marcus. Really good.
I had the hotel job. I had a client list. I was I was going somewhere. She laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. And Damon, he had these ideas, big ideas.
He was going to start his own company. He just needed a little help getting off the ground. and I loved him, so I helped. Marcus felt something tighten in his gut. He'd heard the beginning of this story before. He'd never once heard it end well.
"How much?" he said. Sophia looked up. "How much did you help him?" Marcus said.
"That's not really." "How much, Sophia?" She was quiet for a long moment. "All of it," she whispered. "My savings, the equity I'd built up.
I even took out a loan in my name for his for the business because he said his credit was messed up from before we met and mine was good so it made sense and I her voice cracked and she stopped and she pressed her lips together hard until she had it back under control. I signed my name to everything and then the business failed and he he wasn't there anymore and I was the one holding all of it. Marcus set his coffee down very carefully on the floor. How much are you holding? He said, "Does it matter?
It matters to me." She looked at him and there was something raw and defenseless in her face. And she said a number and Marcus felt his jaw go tight because it was a number that would take a person years to climb out from under. Years of her life. Money that should have built her something gone into a hole that another man dug and walked away from.
He didn't say anything right away. He was afraid of what he'd say. You're mad, Sophia said. I'm not mad at you. You look mad.
I'm mad at him. Marcus stood up because he needed to move and he walked to the window and back. I'm mad at a man I've never met who took a good woman's whole life and spent it and left her sleeping on a broke down bed with books under it, ashamed to even tell her mama the truth. That's what I'm mad at. Sophia stared at him and then to his surprise her eyes filled up and she looked away fast and she wiped at them with the back of her hand like she was angry at them for coming.
Don't, she said. Don't what? Don't be nice to me about it. I can handle people being disappointed. I can handle my mother's face when she thinks about all that money.
I've got a whole system for that. She wiped her eyes again. I don't have a system for somebody being on my side. So don't because I'll cry and I hate crying and then you'll feel bad and I'll feel worse and Sophia and it's just a lot. Okay, it's a lot and I've been holding it by myself for a really long time and I don't Sophia.
She stopped. Marcus crossed the room and crouched down in front of her, so they were eye to eye. And he didn't touch her because it wasn't the time. But he looked at her steady and even the way he looked at Lily when she woke up scared in the night. "You can cry," he said.
"It's just me. I've seen worse than a woman crying." "I've been worse than a woman crying." He almost smiled. "3 years ago, you'd have found me face down at a kitchen table at 2:00 in the morning.