Chapter 9 - Learning How to Close His Eyes
Six months later, Dante Montenegro arrived at the restoration shop carrying a chair.
Not an invoice. Not a bodyguard's message that someone would arrange something.
A chair.
Bruno held the door while Dante carried it inside, then went back out to wait.
My employer, Gordon, looked over his glasses.
“We have a collection service.”
“So I've been told.”
“Did you ignore it for exercise or conversation?”
Dante looked at me.
I put down my sanding block.
“He's going to charge you either way.”
Gordon smiled and returned to his work.
The chair belonged to Lucia. One leg had developed a wobble. She had apparently decided her brother should participate in getting it repaired because he was perfectly capable of answering his own questions about furniture now.
I suspected a conspiracy.
A kinder one than the last.
“How have you been?” Dante asked.
“Busy. Mom's moved back to her apartment. She uses a cane and complains about the stairs, which is an improvement on not being able to climb them.”
“I'm glad.”
“How are you sleeping?”
“Better most nights. Badly on some.”
“An honest report.”
“Dr. Park has become difficult to impress.”
“She always was. You were too tired to notice.”
He laughed.
I liked the sound more each time I heard it.
We had stayed in contact. Carefully at first, then with less need to pretend every conversation concerned the investigation.
He asked about my work. I asked about the things he was changing in his.
There were outside reviews, appointments, and decisions he had once delegated without asking enough questions. He was learning to distinguish disagreement from disloyalty.
Some employees were taking the opportunity to disagree enthusiastically.
Mrs. Bell called that healthy.
Dante called it exhausting, but he kept listening.
The criminal cases moved through their own calendar. Elias and Neil faced the evidence of the concealed equipment, the intimidation, and the armed attempt to coerce my statement. Pryce's cooperation did not spare him professional proceedings or responsibility for his part.
I gave the accounts required of me. Renee prepared me for the questions without teaching me to sound like someone else.
The tablet allegation was formally resolved in my favor. So was the suggestion that Lucia had arranged the scheme.
The ordinary records mattered. Dates. Access histories. Purchase documents. People who had kept copies because that was their job.
So did the emergency bell.
When the cases ended in convictions and pleas, Elias went to prison. Neil did, too. Pryce lost his medical license and received a custodial sentence under the resolution of his own case.
The findings did not call Dante weak because he had needed help.
I was grateful for that.
I had needed help, too.
For weeks after the service corridor, I started at doors closing behind me. I rehearsed conversations before answering calls from numbers I didn't recognize.
Renee helped me find support. My mother listened. Gordon let me step outside when I needed a minute, then expected me to finish the chair when I came back.
That last part helped more than he knew.
There was work I could complete. A mistake I could correct. A day that didn't have to remain defined by the first frightening thing in it.
Dante watched me examine Lucia's chair.
“Would you have dinner with me?” he asked.
I kept my hand on the loose joint.
“We've had meals.”
“With detectives, doctors, or my sister selecting questions from a list.”
“She doesn't use a list.”
“She should. It would save time.”
I smiled despite myself.
He waited until I looked at him.
“I'm asking you on a date, Marina.”
There was enough dust in the room to explain why my throat suddenly felt dry.
“I know.”
“You don't have to answer now.”
I thought of the first morning. His anger. My fear. The months afterward in which both of us had gradually become people instead of roles.
“I don't want to be a good thing you associate with something terrible,” I said.
His expression softened.
“Then we should find out whether we like each other on a boring evening.”
It was the right answer.
“No private room. No staff hovering because they know your name.”
“All right.”
“And I choose the place.”
“I'm beginning to understand the terms.”
We went to a little neighborhood restaurant near my mother's apartment.
The waiter forgot our water. A child at the next table objected to the existence of mushrooms. Dante couldn't decide between two dishes and asked what I thought instead of ordering both to end the inconvenience.
I noticed things like that now.
He asked about the classes I wanted to take. I asked what he had enjoyed before every room became a negotiation.
He told me he used to draw buildings.
“Were you any good?”
“I was very confident.”
“That's a different answer.”
“Lucia pointed that out at the time.”
We laughed more than we discussed the past.
When he walked me to my door, I wasn't thinking about the machines.
I was thinking about the way he listened without looking at his phone.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
I said yes.
The kiss was warm and careful at first. Then I put my hand against his face, and neither of us needed the careful part quite as much.
When we stepped apart, I laughed softly.
“What?” he asked.
“I was just thinking how relieved Mrs. Bell is going to be.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“She knows?”
“Dante. Everybody knows.”
We took our time after that.
There were good evenings and awkward ones. He had habits built from years of expecting control to keep people safe. I had habits built from years of expecting obedience to keep me employed.
We learned to notice them before they made every disagreement larger than it was.
Once, I told him I needed a weekend to myself.
He said he understood.
Then he actually let me have it without making the quiet feel like punishment.
I thought about that for days.
In the spring, he brought me a small package.
Inside was my father's wooden tool box.
The damaged clasp had been repaired. The old lid, scratches and initials included, remained exactly itself.
“Gordon supervised,” Dante said. “Closely.”
I ran my hand over the wood.
“You did this?”
“Most of the useful part. He corrected the rest.”
I looked up at him and realized I was in love.
May you like
Not with the man who could have replaced the whole box before lunch.
With the one who had stayed long enough to repair what mattered to me.
