Episode 49 · Keep It Folded

They were all looking at Soles.

Maxim had not put down his keys. Krista watched Soles with a question she did not ask. Varren waited, mug between his palms.

Soles looked at the paper.

The only one not looking at Soles was Tesa.

She was looking at Varren. At his hands, calm on the mug. At his face, where nothing moved, though that evening something moved across every other face. She watched him as though waiting for the calm to break.

Then she lowered her eyes to her mug and drank, for the first time that evening.

Maxim put the truck keys on the table, with a noise too loud for so small a thing.

— So, he said. Do we sit like this all evening, looking at a piece of paper and drinking cold tea?

— It isn’t cold, Varren said.

— It will be.

Krista did not look at him. Her eyes were on Soles, and Soles’s eyes were on the paper.

— You don’t have to decide now, she said. I said I don’t know whether I want anyone to read it. I didn’t say I don’t want them to.

— Then why did you bring it? Soles asked.

— Because otherwise it would have stayed in my pocket, and you would have asked me about it every ten minutes, with your eyes, without asking. This way at least it’s on the table.

Soles picked up the paper. His thumb caught beneath a fold. One movement and he would have the name.

A name. That’s all.

He thought of Kerr seeing him across the riverbed, of Maxim reaching him too late to keep the promise for him. A name gave him somewhere to go. He knew how quickly he could turn that into permission.

— If I read it now, he said, tomorrow morning I’m at his door.

— Alone, Maxim said.

— Alone, Soles admitted. Like at the riverbed.

No one contradicted him.

He put the paper down exactly where it had been, the folded corners toward him, and drew his hand back.

— Drink first, Varren said, and pushed the chipped mug closer to him. Before we prove Maxim right.

Soles took the mug. He left the fold unopened.

Tesa was not looking at the paper. She was still looking at Varren, at the hand that had pushed the mug and then withdrawn to rest on the table, calm. Only then did she turn to Soles.

— I’d read it, she said. But you’re not me.

— No.

— It’s the only good thing about you, she said, without sarcasm this time. You rarely do what I’d do.

Maxim raised his eyebrows, a remark ready, but changed his mind and drank his tea.

Outside, a car passed on the road, and its headlights slid for a moment across the ceiling and their faces, then were gone. No one spoke until they had faded completely.

Soles pushed the paper back toward Krista.

— You keep it. Until I can promise you I won’t go alone.

— We’ll read it together, Krista said. When you can promise.

She took the paper, folded it once more, as if she wanted to make it fit somewhere it no longer had room, and put it in her pocket. Soles felt something give in his chest, not relief, only a tightness moved one day further on.

Maxim stood first. He had a run at six. He put his keys on the hook beside Soles’s and started toward the spare room. At the stairs, he looked back.

— If curiosity gets you tonight, knock on my wall. I don’t keep papers. Only debts.

— Is that supposed to reassure me?

— No. But it’s honest.

Maxim went upstairs. A floorboard creaked above the kitchen, then his door closed.

Tesa got up next. She zipped her jacket up under her chin and took her mug to the sink herself, without anyone asking. Varren was already there, sleeves rolled up, rinsing the first mug under a thin stream of water. Tesa set the mug beside him, not in his hand.

— Thanks for the tea, she said.

— My pleasure.

She turned to Soles.

— Walk me to the gate? Your dog looks at me like I’m a thief.

Lucky was asleep by the stove. Soles got up anyway.

Outside, gravel crunched underfoot. The moon was almost round above the roofs. Tesa stopped at the gatepost.

— How long have you known him? she asked.

— Who?

She looked through the kitchen window. Varren was putting mugs away without searching.

— Since before, Soles said. Since before all of it.

— And he knows where the mugs go.

— He comes over a lot.

— Mhm.

Soles waited for the rest. It did not come.

— What is it about him? he asked at last.

— Nothing.

Tesa shrugged.

— That’s it. There’s nothing about him. Everyone tonight had something on their face. He had nothing.

— Maybe that’s just how he is.

— Maybe.

She opened the gate and stopped with her hand on the iron.

— My brother used to say that people who never flinch have either nothing to lose or have already lost everything. He never told me how you tell them apart.

He watched her to the corner, where the streetlight caught her hood and lost it.

Inside, Krista was putting on her coat. Varren dried the chipped mug and put it at the front of the cupboard, where Soles reached for it every morning.

— I’ll take you, Varren told Krista.

— I have my car.

— Then I’ll walk you to it.

Krista gave a brief smile, giving up on protesting, and turned to Soles. She only touched her pocket, once, with her fingertips, to show him it was still there.

— Tomorrow at four, at the hall, she said. If I still have a hall.

— You will.

— What do you know?

— Nothing. But it sounds good said out loud.

This time her laugh carried all the way to the door.

Varren left last. In the doorway he stopped and glanced back through the empty kitchen at the table, with the folding chair still open by the corner.

— I’ll leave it here, he said. We might need it again.

Soles nodded.

Alone, he turned off the kitchen light and went out onto the veranda. Mina followed him and pressed against his leg, warm, heavy with sleep. The moon had climbed above the trees at the back of the yard. It was nearly full.

Somewhere, in a coat pocket, a name lay folded three times.

Soles watched the moon until his eyes began to sting, then went in and locked the door.