Ray — Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 4:20 p.m.
Marlene's husband had already put his coat on.
“Don't take yours off,” he told Ray. “We've got to go in a bit.”
“I said I'd have a look.”
“I know you did. It's not urgent.”
It had been urgent enough when Marlene called. Ray carried his little box of tools through to the back room. The window wouldn't close properly. He remembered telling her not to paint it shut, years before, and tried to find a way of mentioning that without sounding pleased with himself.
Marlene followed him. “Can you do it?”
“I can look at it.”
“That's what I meant.”
She wore earrings he hadn't seen before, two colored glass drops that made her look a little dressed up. He wanted to ask where they were going, then decided he didn't care. She would tell him if she wanted him to know.
He could hear her husband in the hall, searching for something. Always ready to leave until it was time to leave. Ray got the window moving while Marlene held a lamp for him. She stood too close to his elbow.
“You're in my light.”
“I'm holding your light.”
“Not a job you're likely to lose, then.”
She laughed, and it was good again. She could laugh like a much younger woman, a quick bark she tried to cover. The first time he had heard it, in a hospital afterward, he'd thought it meant she was going to be all right.
He remembered her coat that night, shiny with rain, and her trying to tell him something while he worked to get her clear. He had been afraid. People left that part out. He'd been thirty-two and scared of doing it wrong, scared of what could happen if he waited. Later everybody had known what he ought to have done, and what it said about him that he'd done it. At the time there had only been a woman he could hear breathing.
“There,” he said. “Try it.”
She did. The window closed. She opened it again, closed it harder.
“Don't break it to find out if it's fixed.”
“Thank you.” She touched his sleeve. “I mean it.”
He wished she'd left her hand there. Not for anything. Just another second.
Her husband appeared with a small plastic packet. “Found them.”
“In your pocket?” Marlene asked.
“The other coat.”
They laughed at something that did not require explaining to Ray, and therefore wasn't explained. He bent to put his tools away.
“While you're here,” Marlene said, “somebody called about that anniversary thing again.”
He kept his back turned. “Oh?”
“A newspaper. I said I wasn't doing it.”
“They asked me for your number. I didn't think you'd mind.”
“I do mind. Ask me first.”
He snapped the box shut.
“I thought you might like it.”
“I liked the first one. I liked showing my mother. I don't want to keep doing it.”
“It's once a year.”
“It was twenty-two years ago, Ray. I've got other things to talk about.”
Her husband went away quietly. That was worse than his staying. It made a little private embarrassment of the room.
Marlene was looking at him without the anger that would have made it easier to be angry with her. He could see the edge of the old scar above her collar. He didn't often let himself look at it. She'd told him once she forgot it was there until somebody saw it.
“I'll tell them,” he said.
“Thank you.”
At the door she asked if Ruth was going ahead with the new job. He hadn't known Ruth had told her. They spoke for a minute about the hours, the commute, a person Marlene knew who worked there. He could contribute nothing except the agreement he'd given over lunch, which didn't sound like a contribution when he said it aloud.
“Good for her,” Marlene said.
“Yes.”
Her husband had the car running. She locked the door herself, then waited on the path until Ray got into his pickup. She gave him a little wave before joining her husband, anxious to be off.
He sat with the tools on the seat beside him. His hands smelled of old paint. The window was fixed, so the room would be warmer tonight, and Marlene would sleep there or sit there without thinking of him. He tried to make that a satisfying thought. He could almost do it.