Daniel came on Wednesday with three cardboard boxes and a bag she had once packed for him.
He set them beside the door. Lena had already put his work clothes in two clean piles on the bed. She hadn't folded them as well as he did. She'd stopped herself trying.
“Thanks,” he said.
She nodded.
The flat looked larger without his jacket hanging from the hallway hook, though nothing else had left yet. She hated that a space could begin changing before either person had finished being there.
They started with the obvious things. His tools. His clothes. The weights from the small room. He carried them out carefully, not making the sound she had expected.
Then they reached the ordinary things neither had brought alone. A frying pan. The lamp. The blue bowl from the beach weekend.
Daniel picked it up and held it a moment.
“You chose it,” he said.
“You carried it.”
“It can stay.”
She looked at the empty place it had made on the counter and took it from him.
“All right.”
He put the pan beside his box. She nearly said she wanted that as well, then realised she only didn't want to watch him take anything they had used together.
She let the pan go.
In the bedroom he took his bedside books. Lena brought the engagement ring from the little shelf beside the mirror, where she had put it after Monday.
She laid it beside the books. Daniel picked it up without trying it on her hand or asking her to keep it. He put it in the small box and closed the lid.
Then he lifted the books. Beneath them lay a ticket from the film they'd both slept through. He held it up before thinking, the old instinct to share a funny thing.
Lena smiled despite herself.
“Neither of us knows how it ended.”
“I thought you did.”
“You said you did.”
They laughed briefly. Then he put the ticket in the bin, and she wished he hadn't. Then she was glad not to have to decide whether to keep it.
The bedroom became quiet again.
“Will you manage the flat?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I can keep paying something for a bit.”
“You've said this month's share. That's enough.”
“It isn't meant to—”
“I know. I had the rent before you. I have my wages. I'll have less room for things, but I'll manage.”
He nodded. She saw the effort it took not to explain all the ways he could still be useful.
They went to the small room. The sketchbook was closed now. Lena had taken out the screws and put them in his tool box. He looked at the desk, then at the new shelf.
“I'll leave the lamp.”
“Take it if you want it.”
“I bought it for you.”
She swallowed. “Then thank you.”
There was no graceful way to accept a kindness from a man who had hurt her this much. She didn't have to find one. She only had to decide whether she wanted the lamp.
She did.
In the kitchen Daniel noticed the cupboard catch sticking and reached for his screwdriver.
“Leave it,” she said.
“It'll only take a minute.”
“I can ask somebody. Or do it myself.”
He stopped, screwdriver halfway out of the bag.
“Of course.”
She looked at his face and felt cruel.
“You don't have to finish everything before you go.”
He put the tool away.
“It's easier than standing here,” he said.
She believed that.
They drank tea because they had been moving things for two hours and needed to sit. Two mugs, both hers now. The kettle was old enough that she worried it would break at exactly the moment she had no one to laugh with about replacing it.
Daniel watched the steam rise.
“I should have said I didn't want to marry,” he said. “Clearly. Before I spoke to Bea. It wasn't your crying that made me do this.”
Lena looked at him.
“I kept wanting to be decent without saying the thing a decent person would have said,” he continued. “Then I made it your decision.”
She rubbed her thumb against the mug handle.
“You did.”
He nodded. He didn't ask whether understanding that was enough for another chance.
She was glad. She was also grief-stricken that he knew it wasn't.
They finished the tea. He rinsed his mug, then looked at her before drying it. She handed him the towel. Some habits could end at their ordinary size.
He carried the boxes down. Lena held the front door because it kept swinging shut. On the last trip he came up for the bag she'd once packed.
“Keys,” she said.
He took the flat key from his ring and put it on the little shelf. The tiny click was worse than the boxes.
At the doorway they both paused.
She wanted to hug him. She didn't want him to think a hug was an opening. He wanted something too; she could see it in his hands.
She stepped forward first. They held each other once, awkwardly, coats and bag between them. His face pressed briefly against her hair.
“Bye, Lena.”
“Bye.”
She let go before either could hold on for the wrong reason.
He went downstairs. She waited until the van drove away, then closed the door.
In the kitchen she put three tomatoes into the blue bowl. It looked beautiful and unbearable on the table.
She left it there.