I was here all day. I ran your AC all day. That's not free and I know it's not free. So I looked at the She faltered. It was on the counter.
The bill. I didn't go through your things. It was on the counter and it said pass due. And I How much? Marcus, how much, Clare? $412.
The room made no sound except a 16-year-old compressor doing something it hadn't done in 14 days resting. Take it back, Marcus said. You can't take back a payment. Then I'll write you a check, Marcus. I'll write you a check on Friday, Marcus.
Clare's voice went hard and Lily's head came up, and Clare heard it and pulled it back down softer. It's $400. I spent more than that on a chair last month, an accent chair. I don't even sit in it. That's not the point.
Then what's the point? The point, Marcus said, is that when I walk in my house at the end of a day, I need to know what everything in it costs and who paid for it. That's how I've kept this roof on for 3 years. I know the number on every single thing in here. That's not living.
That's That's exactly living, Clare. That's what living costs. Dad. Lily's voice small. Marcus stopped.
His daughter was sitting on the carpet with a pencil in her fist, looking up at him with her mother's exact face. Don't be mad at her, Lily said. It was cold. I got to do my homework, and I wasn't sweaty. and Marcus Williams, 6'1, two cut hands, 11 hours in an attic, stood in his living room, and could not think of one single thing to say to that. He went and washed his hands.
He ran the water until it was cold, which took a while, and he stood at the sink with his palms under it, and thought about the fact that his daughter had just told him out loud in front of a witness that she had spent 14 days doing homework sweaty, and he hadn't known. or he had known and he'd called it what living costs. He came back out. Thank you, he said. Clare's shoulders came down about an inch. You're welcome.
Friday, I write you a check, Marcus. Half, he said. 206. That's the deal. Take it or I'm calling the power company and unpaying it.
And don't tell me you can't because I have called that company at 11:00 at night and made them do things you would not believe. Clare looked at him for a long moment. 206, she said. 206. You're the most exhausting man I've ever met.
You knocked on my door. Marcus said that night after Lily went down, they sat on the front steps because inside was 71 and outside was 94. And Marcus had spent so long being hot that 71 felt like a lie he was telling himself. Across the street, Mrs. Doyle's porch light was on.
"She's watching," Clare said. "She's always watching." "Does that bother you? Does it bother you?" Clare considered it.
No, she said. Should it? Different question. Marcus said, ask me if it bothers me. Does it bother you?
Yes. They sat with that. Marcus. Clare said, can I ask you something and you don't get mad? No.
Okay, I'm asking anyway. She turned her mug in her hands. Ruthie Coleman. Marcus's head came around. How do you know that name? because your daughter talks a lot.
She told me you fix Mrs. Ruthiey's AC for free. She told me you fix the Ortegas, too. And Mr. Pete's and somebody named Deacon Hollis's and that man on the corner with the dog.
Clare watched him. She says, "You don't take money from anybody on this street." She exaggerates. Does she? She's eight, Marcus.
Clare set the mug down. There is a man on this street who works two jobs and can't pay a $400 power bill. And that same man fixes half the neighborhood for free. That's not a contradiction. I can just let sit there.
I design rooms for people who complain about drawer pulls. So explain it to me. Marcus was quiet a long time. Nikki died in July. He said Clare went very still.
3 years ago, 22 months from diagnosis, ovarian. He said it like a man reading a work order. The last 3 weeks she was home, hospice, and it was a summer like this one. Not this bad, but bad. And our unit went out.
Oh god. 16 years old then, too. Compressor locked. And I'm an HVAC tech. Claire, I fix these things for a living and I could not fix it because the part was $1,100 and I had $462 in the account and I had a 5-year-old and my wife was dying in a room that was 90°.
Claire's hand went over her mouth. So, I called everybody I knew, Marcus said. Everybody. Every supplier, every shop, every guy I ever pulled a shift with. And nobody had it or nobody had it free. and I'm standing in my kitchen at 1:00 in the morning on the phone begging and Nikki calls me from the back.
He stopped. Clare didn't say anything. That was the right call and she seemed to know it. And she says, "Baby, come sit down. You're missing it."
The compressor kicked on behind them. "You're missing it," Marcus said. That's what she said. meaning her, meaning the 3 weeks. I spent 4 days of the last 3 weeks of my wife's life on the phone about a compressor. Marcus Deacon Hollis showed up the next morning.
Marcus's voice didn't change at all. 76 years old. He'd been calling around behind me. He had a used unit off a tear down in his truck bed. He and Pete and Ortega put it in my yard in 100° and Hollis wouldn't take a dollar.
Wouldn't take a dollar, Claire. And I said, "Deacon, let me pay you." And he said, "Marcus stopped." He said, "What?" He said, "Son, you'll pay somebody.
Just won't be me." Clare sat on the steps of a house across the street from her own and put both hands over her face. "So, no," Marcus said. "I don't take money from anybody on this street. Not because I'm good, because I owe it.
There's a difference. And don't ever mix them up." Marcus, that is good. That's It's a debt. Marcus said debts you pay.
Good is when you had a choice. Hey. She was quiet for a long while. Then how long? How long?
What? How long has your AC been on 78? Marcus laughed. It wasn't a good laugh. 3 years.