That had been when I’d started crying. His look of shock was quickly replaced with concern. He’d immediately taken me in his arms and hugged me tight. “Minnie. Sweetheart. Holder of my happiness. What’s the matter? Just give me the word and I’ll do whatever it takes to fix it. Climb mountains. Slay lions. I’ll even drive downstate and get you those doughnuts you like so much.”
His nonsense made me cry even harder, but my tears eventually dried up and I pulled away. “Sorry about your shirt,” I’d said, wiping my eyes with a napkin I’d brought from Fat Boys Pizza and blowing my nose with another one.
He didn’t even look at the vast wet splotches. “It’ll wash. What’s wrong?”
On some deep level, I recognized how much I loved this man, and how lucky I was that he loved me back. The rest of me was filled with sadness for what had happened that afternoon. I’d started texting him about Rowan half a dozen times, but I’d always put the phone away before hitting Send, not knowing what to say, figuring I’d tell him in person. And now that time was here.
By the time Rafe had finished eating, I’d finished the story, which ended with me stopping at the Charlevoix Hospital and getting confirmation that Rowan had indeed died. I’d tracked down an emergency room nurse that I knew and wheedled out a little more information, primarily that Rowan had most likely been dead long before Julia and I had arrived.
“But that doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?” Rafe had asked.
I’d shaken my head.
“Eat something,” he’d told me. “You probably don’t think you’re hungry, but just try eating, okay?”
Two pieces of pizza and three breadsticks later, I was feeling better. Part of which could be attributed to the massive amount of carbohydrates I’d just ingested, but a full stomach on top of the comfort Rafe had given me was edging me from shocked grief to a dull sadness that only time would ease.
Rafe was now up on a ladder with a putty knife and a can of wood filler. I spent a few minutes admiring the way his broad shoulders tapered to his waist, but since it wouldn’t do to inflate his ego, I asked the obvious question. “Why are you bothering to fill nail holes that are too small to see?”
“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie.” His sigh was dramatic and overwrought, nearly Julia quality. “Haven’t you learned the first rule of home improvement?”
Was he kidding? “I know all of those rules. Number one: It’ll take forever. Number two: Anything you do will cost half again as much as you think it will. Number three: Nothing is ever delivered on time. Number four is—”
Rafe’s voice cut through my recitation. Which was too bad because I could have continued for a long time. “Once again, you have not been paying attention to all that I have been teaching you.”
He was partly right, but not completely. “I know that measuring twice and cutting once is more than just an aphorism. And,” I said proudly, “I know the difference between flat, Phillips, and offset screwdrivers.”
“The first rule of home improvement,” Rafe said, ignoring me, “is to hide things.”
I frowned. “What exactly are you hiding? There’s no room up there to hide anything.”
“Mistakes.” Rafe peered at his handiwork, added a microscopic amount of putty, and peered again. “You have to cover up your mistakes completely or you’ll be staring at them the rest of your life wishing you’d done a better job.”
“Better?” I asked in disbelief. “I’ve lost track of the things you’ve ripped out and reinstalled because they weren’t quite right. How could anything in this place be less than perfect?”
He gave the crown molding one last critical glance and came down the ladder.
That he hadn’t replied to my comment was an unusual occurrence, but there was also a suddenly odd feel to the silence in the room.
A silence that was weighted down with . . . something. The back of Rafe’s head wasn’t giving out any clues, so I started thinking about what I’d said. Started thinking about changes he’d made to the house while my best friend Kristen and I had rolled our eyes about his indecisiveness. Thought about the times he’d asked my opinion about paint colors. Thought about last October, when Rafe told me he’d been renovating the house for me all along. The conclusion was stunningly obvious.
“You kept making changes,” I said slowly, “because you wanted me to be part of the renovation.”
“For someone who’s really smart, you can be pretty stupid sometimes.” He grinned sideways at me, his teeth white against skin that was an attractive reddish brown color, thanks to some key Native American Anishinaabe ancestors, the same ancestors that had bestowed upon him thick black hair. “I should write up a change order invoice and send it to you.”
“I’d love to see that.”
He stopped moving the ladder and turned. “You would?”
“Absolutely. I’ll have it framed. We can hang it right over there.” I pointed to a blank spot. “It’ll look great next to the portrait of Eddie.”
“Nice to hear you getting into the spirit of decorating.” Rafe slathered more wood putty on the knife. “But I’d rather hear you make a decision about hardware for the kitchen cabinets.”
“I don’t like to rush these kinds of decisions. What we need is research.” I hopped off my stool and pulled a book out of my backpack. Hopping back up, I said, “What I have here, courtesy of your local library, is a history of kitchens that I will be happy to read to you. Shall we start with the preface, or the first chapter?”
“How about we start with the section on cabinet hardware?”
Smiling brightly, I said, “The preface it is and I completely agree with that opinion. The author wrote it for a reason and we need to find out what it is.” Disregarding what sounded like a bleat of despair from my beloved, I started to read.
• • •
When I got back to the boardinghouse, Aunt Frances was lying on a living room couch, looking very comfortable. The blanket over my aunt’s legs was covered with Eddie and Eddie fur. A fire was crackling merrily, and the book she was reading, Why We Run, by Bernd Heinrich, was opened at the halfway point. My aunt, who was active throughout the day, had never understood the point of formal exercise. She did, however, have an odd interest in ultraendurance, and had crowed with pleasure when I’d brought the book home from the library.
After my coat and boots were stowed away, I flopped on the opposite couch. “Want to know how he finishes the race?”
Still focused on her reading, she said, “Tell me and you die.”
I didn’t say anything, and she glanced up and immediately put the book aside. “What’s the matter, dear heart?”
The tears that had been absorbed into Rafe’s shirt must have been my allotment for the day, so I was able to tell the story of Rowan Bennethum’s death with only a couple of sniffles.
“It’s so sad,” I finished, blowing my nose with a tissue. The nose-blowing was hampered somewhat by Eddie, who’d heaved himself off my aunt’s lap and trundled over to mine. His purrs were so loud that I could feel them in my inner ear. “Neil’s going to be lost without his wife,” I said, “and the twins have lost their mother forever. Yes, they’re in college and don’t need her like little kids would, but it’s still going to be hard.”