He headed back to the house. Jogged back, the tape measure and wallet and keys bouncing in his pockets. He had left the front door unlocked; he burst through it, calling out to her. "Sylvie!" His voice echoed through the house. It sounded so empty. "Sylvie, are you here?"
He ran up the stairs, tried all the doors on the second floor. Up into the attic. "Don't hide from me in here, Sylvie," he said. No answer, she wasn't there, or if she was he couldn't find her.
She'd come back. She'd hidden before, stayed out of sight for a while. But she came back. Ten years she'd been trapped in this place, it's not likely that one quarrel would drive her out, was it? He tried to fill himself with confidence as he went back down the attic stairs, then down the wide staircase to the main floor. Maybe she was in the cellar.
No. She was in the parlor. Lying on his cot. Asleep on his cot. Hadn't she heard him calling? He'd been so loud. Nellie had been like that. When she slept, she slept.
He thought of waking her, apologizing to her, telling her what he had realized, that the room was for her all along, that she was welcome here as long as the house belonged to him. But he couldn't bring himself to disturb her.
He went upstairs to the bedroom she had been sleeping in, to the one shabby bed remaining in the house. He took the mattress off the bed, blankets and all, and dragged it into the new room; the sagging box springs came next. Then he knocked apart the bedframe and carried in the four parts and reassembled them, put on the springs and mattress, and neatly made the bed. It looked so small in that large space, like a child's bed, though it was a regular twin. And so tatty compared to the glowing perfect finish of the room. He thought of buying her a new bed, a queen-size perhaps; a canopy bed, or a brass one, or a four-poster. But no, that would feel too permanent. A waste of money in a house he was going to sell in a year. This shabby old bed would have to do. It was the space around the bed that mattered. What she would see in the morning when she opened her eyes. The bands of light through the windows. The closet where she had already played like a child. She owned nothing with which to fill this space. So instead she would own the space itself.
He heard a sound from the hall outside the room. A footstep. He turned around and there she was.
"My bed," she said.
Suddenly he was shy about what he had done. "I needed to have your stuff out of the other room before I worked on it."
She stepped into the room and looked at all of it again, turning around once, twice. "I get to sleep in here?"
He nodded.
"I've never had a room like this." She laughed, a low sound, deep mirth; and then another laugh, cascading, the music of delight. "I know, it's only for a little while, but—thank you."
And with that the room was no longer his. He had bestowed it. He smiled at her, tipped his invisible hat, and went away downstairs.
14
Wrecking Bar
Don went to sleep that night feeling better than he had for a long time. Embarrassing as it had been to break down like that in front of Sylvie, he knew that it had been a good thing. A wall inside himself had been broken. He could think of Nellie's name again, say it to himself. Something had been given back to him. And because Sylvie had been part of it, there was something between them now. A bond of loss, if loss could bind. He could share this house with her, for the months ahead, because they were no longer strangers.
In the morning, though, with the emotions of the day before faded, he began to think of other things. Bleaker things. Had the sight of his weeping diminished him in Sylvie's eyes? He remembered standing there watching Cindy weep. Touching her as Sylvie had touched him. It had meant the end of his relationship with Cindy. Not that the situations had been analogous. It was the passion that ended between him and Cindy. There had never been any such feeling between him and Sylvie. On the contrary there had been suspicion and hostility and dread. The transformation could only be for the better.
Yet his suspicion grew as he climbed the stairs, heading for the shower, and glanced at the door to her new room. Closed. Getting her own room—that was a victory he had simply handed to her. Now could he ever get her out of there? Why had he done something so foolish? Yesterday, caught up in emotion, he had felt protective, expansive, even grateful to her for her show of kindness. Today, the emotions spent, he could see that he had only complicated things worse. She was still a stranger. But now she was a stranger who was bound to think she had a hold on him. Loneliness had driven him to do foolish things, and now he would have to face the consequences.
Sooner than he imagined, in fact. For once he was showered, ready for the day, his first task was to look for his wrecking bar. He hadn't needed it since he tore out the walls in the room that was now Sylvie's. Which meant it should have been where he always kept it, in the long green toolbox. It wasn't there.
At first he thought perhaps he had put it away somewhere else. But it didn't take long to eliminate all the possibilities. Don was meticulous about putting his tools away. There was no reason to think he had done anything unusual with the wrecking bar.
He didn't want to suspect Sylvie, but what if she had moved it awhile ago, before their reconciliation? It was still annoying that she might have been doing things like that, but at least it wouldn't be a complete repudiation of the kinder, gentler relationship that was established yesterday. He wouldn't hold such a prank against her. As long as she gave the wrecking bar back to him.
He went upstairs and knocked on her door.
"Yes?" Her voice came only faintly through the closed door.
"Have you seen my wrecking bar?"
"Just a minute."
He waited. After a few moments, she opened the door. Wearing her dress, as usual. He wondered if she slept in it. Probably not; it was faded but not terribly wrinkled. So she must sleep in her underwear or in the buff—on bedding that couldn't have been washed more recently than her dress. "Listen," he said, "I'm going to do a laundry today, you want me to take those sheets?"
Her face brightened. "Sure. Thanks."
"Um, I could... that dress. If you wore your bathrobe while I'm gone, I could take that dress and wash it."
She shook her head. "No thanks. Really. It's all right."
"It wouldn't be any trouble. Or I'd get it dry-cleaned."
"I don't... that's kind of you, but I just... it's not dirty."
He didn't bother to argue. "Whatever," he said. "But anyway, what I actually came up here for, I wondered if you knew where my wrecking bar is."
"Wrecking bar?"
"That black metal prybar I used for popping off wallboard. All-purpose breaking and ripping-up tool."
"I don't remember it."
He drew it in the air. "Shaped like this."
"OK, yes, I think I remember. What about it?"
"Where is it?"
"Where did you put it last?"
"I put it away in my long green toolbox."
She gazed steadily at him for a long moment before answering. "Don, you told me not to touch your tools and I don't touch them."
So much for a more forthright relationship between them. "What was it, killer moths? Fairies? Elves?"
She sighed and leaned her head against the doorpost. "Please," she said. "I thought we were friends now."
"So did I. But I need my wrecking bar. I've got to start on another room. Tearing out a stud wall and stripping the old lath and plaster."