After lunch he set up on the screened porch with his laptop. He caught a weak signal and worked through his backlog of email. Kate cooked in the kitchen. Lily drew on the floor in the main room. He could hear her talking to her rabbit, seriously explaining something about colors.
At dinner they sat at the same table. Kate made soup from whatever was on hand. Alex didn’t offer to help. She didn’t ask. Lily sat between them and talked about the rabbit. Apparently the rabbit’s name was Peter. He was seven years old and liked carrots, but only cooked ones.
Alex listened and said little. Kate was clearing the dishes when he said, without looking at her:
“I saw a stack of papers on the porch. Divorce documents?”
She turned. Was quiet for a second.
“Yes.”
“What court?”
“D.C. Superior Court.”
“How long has it been dragging on?”
“Four months. My husband asks for continuances every time. His lawyer says there are no grounds for divorce since I left voluntarily and there’s no property dispute.”
“That’s nonsense. There are grounds.”
Kate looked at him.
“I know. But I don’t have a lawyer to argue that. And without one, the judge tends to listen harder to the side that does.”
Alex closed his laptop. Looked at her directly.
“I can give you the name of someone. Good attorney. Family law. He can move this along.”
Something flickered in Kate’s eyes. Not gratitude—wariness. He noticed.
“I’m not asking you for anything,” she said evenly. “If you’re offering help, thank you. But I’d like to understand why.”
Alex lifted an eyebrow slightly.
“Because it’s unfair,” he said simply. “And because I know how systems work when one side has resources and the other doesn’t.”
Kate looked at him for several seconds.
“All right,” she said at last. “Thank you.”
“I’ll send you the contact tomorrow. If the signal cooperates.”
Lily, who had been pretending not to listen while fussing with the rabbit, looked up.
“Mr. Alex, are you staying longer?”
“One more day for sure.”
“Good,” she said in the tone of someone making an important decision. “Then tomorrow you can look at my drawings. I have a lot.”
“I will,” he said.
Kate turned back to the sink, and he couldn’t see her face. But her shoulders looked a little less tense.
That evening Alex sat alone on the porch. The sky over the town was clear and full of stars. You never saw a sky like that in D.C. The horizon there always glowed orange. Here it was dark and quiet, and the stars hung close overhead. He thought about his mother. About how she had sat on this same porch. Looked at this same sky. Alone. The middle step squeaked under him. He didn’t bother avoiding it.
Sunday began in fog. Alex woke early. Habit. Even on weekends his mind came online before the rest of him wanted to. Six a.m., and his thoughts were already moving. He dressed, stepped outside, and saw that the town had disappeared. The fog lay thick and white, swallowing fences, trees, distant houses. You could see only a few yards ahead. Frosted grass, damp porch boards, the outline of the apple tree…
