Chapter 21
“Your mother talks too much.”
“She says that too.”
The five weeks disappeared.
Marcy found an apartment outside downtown Chicago.
Linda spent approximately nine hundred hours studying photographs of the building online.
She evaluated smoke detectors, windows, parking, nearby grocery stores, and something she called “general sidewalk quality.”
Marcy tolerated it.
I built her a small walnut desk.
“You know apartments come with furniture now,” she said.
“Not furniture built by your father.”
“That is emotionally unfair.”
“Yes.”
Dustin helped me load it into a rental truck.
That was the first full day we spent together without Marcy.
Around noon, we ate sandwiches on the tailgate.
He had changed.
Not miraculously.
People didn’t.
He still interrupted sometimes.
Still carried more confidence than circumstances deserved.
Still had a competitive streak large enough to require its own mailing address.
But he caught himself now.
Apologized.
Listened.
Those things mattered.
“You think we’ll make it?” he asked.
I knew what he meant.
“You and Marcy?”
He nodded.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever I say, you’ll carry it into decisions that belong to you.”
He stared at his sandwich.
“I want it to work.”
“Then behave like somebody worth building something with.”
He looked at me.
“That one of your Marine sayings?”
“No.”
“Sounds like one.”
“Marine sayings involve more profanity.”
He laughed.
Then he became thoughtful.
“I used to think if somebody loved you, they stayed.”
I understood the sentence better than he knew.
“And now?”
“Maybe sometimes loving somebody means not making them stay.”
That answer told me more about his progress than anything else had.
Moving day arrived on a clear Saturday morning.
Marcy drove with Linda.
I drove the truck.
Dustin followed in his car.
When we finally carried the last box into the apartment, Linda immediately began rearranging the kitchen.
Marcy immediately began rearranging it back.
Some things survived every transition.
Her apartment was small but bright.
May you like
Afternoon sun came through tall windows. A narrow fire escape overlooked brick buildings and trees beginning to turn yellow.
I placed the walnut desk beneath the window.
