“Depends what you’re asking.”
“Not what it said.” She was looking at the gate, not at him. “Just… do you feel lighter?”
He set down the screwdriver. Picked up the tea. Thought about it.
“She wrote that we had already made peace,” he said. “Months before she died. I didn’t know that. To me, we were still in a fight. I didn’t call, she didn’t call. But in the letter she wrote that she had forgiven me. That she’d forgiven me a long time ago. That, in the big picture, there hadn’t really been a fight. Just two stubborn people built too much alike.” He stopped. “She wrote that she loved me. That she always had. That she knew I loved her too.”
Kate was silent.
“She was right,” he added quietly. “I knew it too. I just never said it. Not to her. Not to anyone.”
The pause stretched out. Somewhere beyond the garden a bird called. The autumn sun sat low, and the apple tree’s shadow reached across the yard.
“Your mother was a smart woman,” Kate said at last.
“Yeah.” He took a sip. “Smarter than me, definitely.”
They sat in silence a little longer, and it was an easy silence.
“Alex,” Kate said. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow, probably. Wednesday morning.” He looked at her. “You have Riley’s contact information. I wrote it down and left it on the table. Call him Wednesday. Tell him I sent you. He’s expecting it.”
“Okay.”
“And one more thing.” He chose his words carefully. “You and Lily can stay here as long as you need. I’m not selling the house anytime soon. When you decide to move on, just let me know ahead of time. I’ll come lock up.”
Kate looked at him closely.
“You said ‘anytime soon.’ Does that mean you still might sell it?”
Alex was quiet.
“I don’t know. Before, it seemed obvious. Now I’m not sure.” He looked up at the house. “My mother used to say I needed this place. That I just didn’t know it yet.” He gave a faint smile. “Maybe she was right about that too.”
Lily stuck her head out from the porch.
“You’re drinking tea without me?” she said, offended.
“Come here,” Kate called.
Lily ran over, demanded her own mug, and planted herself on the porch step beside Alex, shoulder pressed against his elbow as naturally as if she had always stood there.
The three of them stood by the repaired gate, with the sun low and the shadows long and the air smelling of fall and wood smoke. Alex looked at the gate and thought about how his mother had mentioned it for three years. Asked him to fix it for three years. He never came. She never pushed. Just waited. Now he had fixed it. Three years late. But fixed it.
Alex left Wednesday morning. Lily came out to see him off wearing pajamas and rain boots. Kate hadn’t had time to get her properly dressed; the child had bolted outside first. She stood by the gate and watched him load his suitcase and laptop into the car.
“Will you come back?” she asked.
“I will.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Lily thought about that. Apparently “soon” did not satisfy her. She frowned and adjusted the rabbit under her arm.
“How soon?”
Alex closed the trunk and looked at her.
“Two weeks. Three at the most.”
“Three weeks is a long time.”
“I know.”
Lily looked at him for another second. Then she walked right up to him and held out the rabbit. He didn’t understand at first. Then he did. She was offering him Peter.
“Take him with you,” she said. “So you won’t forget to come back.”
Kate, standing a little off to the side, said quietly:
“Lily, that’s your rabbit.”
“I know he’s mine. That’s why Mr. Alex will bring him back.” She said it with the kind of logic that allowed no appeal.
Alex took the rabbit. Seriously, with both hands, the way you take something important.
“I’ll bring him back,” he said. Then he turned to Kate. She was looking at him calmly, without extra words. In five days they had both somehow gotten used to doing without extra words.
“Call Riley today,” he said. “Don’t put it off.”
“I will.”
“If you have questions about the case, call me directly. You have my number…”
