“Vacuum’s done, laundry’s going cause I can hear it. You worked out, went to Overton for food. What else? Oh—new books. Library, too then.”
“What are you, a crime scene detective?” I asked. “So I ran some errands and decided to be productive around the house. I’ve been slacking on the laundry and stuff. You’ve been busy, and it’s not all your job anyway. I was just making up for lost time.”
“So another three days of this and you’ll have re-roofed the entire place, right?”
“Maybe,” I said, “come eat dinner. You can give me crap about doing laundry while you eat. Tell me about your day. Since I’m a shut-in and everything.”
Trixie kicked off her shoes and set them by the door, left her purse on the table, and washed up at the sink. “This is really nice,” she said. “I know it’s hard for you to be home when you’re used to spending so much time at the station. Thanks for getting supper.”
“You want to make fun of me so bad right now, but you’re afraid it’s mean,” I observed.
“Yeah,” she sagged into her chair. “I mean, there you are, facedown on the hardwood floor. What am I supposed to think? You need one of those Life Alert call buttons or something!”
“What, like Mildred fell out of her chair reaching for the remote? I’m glad that’s how you think of me.”
“Have some soup. It’s nice and thin, and no big pieces you can choke on,” she teased.
“I’m not elderly. I have teeth and they work.”
“Right, whatever, old man,” she laughed.
“You come here!” I started to say, ready to grab her and kiss her, reaching for her, but I stopped myself and went and sat down abruptly across from her and started to serve myself some noodles.
She looked at me funny, but sat down and quietly scooped rice onto her plate and sprinkled it with soy sauce. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and I noticed she must’ve been starving. She ate the whole plate of food and dished out more, nodding at me appreciatively, her mouth full. I scooted some broccoli and chicken around on my plate with a fork, wondering where to begin with her. Should I just tell her what Brody had told me to? That I cared about her and the fire made me see how much? I was hesitant to use his words, to oversimplify that much. But I was afraid if I tried to explain how I felt, how I’d been attracted to her for years, how I’d held back because I knew if it didn’t work out, my mom would kill me—that sounded strange and immature. As if I were being anything but strange and immature deciding over what to say while she ate massive amounts of Chinese takeout and waited for me to start talking.
“How did it go at work?” I asked.
“So great. You know yesterday was basically just the beginning, not open full hours and just making sure I had everything ready. Well, it was way busier than I expected and you sending supper was fabulous. But today, well it made yesterday look like a cake walk. So many people just stopped in to pick up a bouquet and tell me the place looked great and they were glad to see me open it again. A lot of people from my parents’ church and stuff just dropped by and said such kind things and looked around and bought a plant or a wreath. It was wonderful. I felt so much love being poured out over me from the community. I had Cathy and her cousin and another girl from over at the community college come in to help out. The college girl is doing it for practicum experience in her business class so it’s literally free help. And I have so many orders to fill. I’ll be really late tomorrow. So you can exercise by the door all you want, I promise.”
“I’m really proud of you,” I said. “But I never doubted you’d make a success of it; that you’d make that shop take off in a big way once you could do things the way you wanted them done. Since I’m technically off work, I could lend a hand tomorrow if you want, deliver flowers or sweep the shop and work the cash register, make sure your smoke alarm batteries are up to date,” I offered.
“I’d—really appreciate that. If you have an hour or two, I mean. You don’t have to.”
“I know I don’t have to. I just offered. And I’m literally free help, too.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Damon. But you knew that. I mean, that’s what got you in trouble at work, and what got you married to me. Saving people.”
I watched her take a drink of wine, and I wondered if she thought I was just a guy with a hero complex. I mean, I probably did have a hero complex. But that wasn’t why I helped her.