Ray — Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 6:00–7:15 p.m.
He remembered the blanket. It was on the passenger seat when he pulled up, folded small enough to carry under one arm. Jamie came out to meet him and took it without saying he'd wondered where it had gone.
“Put it there,” he said, pointing Ray toward a space beside the door. “I'm making a mess.”
He had put two lamps over the workbench. In their light the cabinet looked rather worse than it had Sunday, one front removed, a pale line where a joint had been cleaned. Ray could see why people panicked halfway through a repair. Things that had at least stood together now lay separately on a bench while you waited to learn whether you could put them back.
Jamie stood looking at it beside him.
“Still coming out all right?” Ray asked.
“Yeah. This is the bit that takes forever and looks like nothing.”
“I know that bit.”
“You want tea?”
“Let me put my coat down.”
Jamie had cleared the chair. Ray laid his coat over the back and sat while the kettle boiled in the corner. He hadn't noticed until he sat how much he'd wanted to. The garage was quiet except for a heater making a faint regular noise and somebody moving a bin in the space outside. Jamie was not waiting for him to fix the whole cabinet. That was a relief he could enjoy without having to say it.
“What did you do to your head?” his son asked.
Ray touched the red mark beside his eye. “Sink. Your mother's.”
“Our sink.”
“She was the one making it important.”
Jamie smiled. “You fix it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He brought tea and a covered container of pasta. He'd bought enough on his way from work. There were two forks and no plates, which suited Ray. Jamie ate standing at the bench until Ray moved the second chair out with his foot.
“You can sit down.”
“I keep seeing something.”
He sat. For a few minutes they ate without discussing what would happen next. Ray liked the sauce, though it would stain something before the meal was over. Jamie had the same habit as Ruth of winding too much onto a fork, then having to consider it. There were things you passed on without meaning to, things you could recognize only when the person doing them wasn't you.
“Mom says the new hours are going through,” Jamie said.
“Looks like.”
“She sounds pleased.”
“She'll have more time.”
“She said something about getting home at four. I can call her after work.”
Jamie was still eating. Ray put a small piece of pasta back into the container and tried to catch it again without sauce dripping on his trousers.
Jamie laughed and gave him a napkin. He had noticed the whole struggle and hadn't offered instructions. Ray put the napkin on his knee, and for a while the job was simply eating supper with his son in a warm room.
When they had finished, Jamie asked if he'd hold the drawer front while he checked its fit. Ray stood on the side he was shown. Jamie moved around him, concentrating, looking along the edge, making a small adjustment Ray could hardly see. The wood was smooth against Ray's thumb. He held it steady. They didn't talk until Jamie was satisfied.
“There,” Jamie said.
He set it in place. It was right. Ray could remember a tiny uncertainty in the closing movement on Sunday; now it met the cabinet evenly. He opened it once and shut it again.
“Better.”
“It's meant to be.”
“I'll write you a review.”
Jamie gave him a look. “Don't.”
Ray grinned. “Three stars. Man was very rude to his father.”
“Didn't charge him anything.”
“I'll mention that.”
They left it alone for a minute, standing on either side of the bench. Jamie was looking at the work, not at Ray to find out if he was pleased. His son had always wanted him nearby when he was making something, had carried whole constructions into the living room while Ray was trying to watch a program. Then there'd been a run of years when Ray had known nothing about what Jamie was doing until Ruth told him. Now here he was again, and it seemed as easy as turning up at six.
Jamie gathered the empty container and forks. His phone was faceup beside the kettle. He glanced at a message, put the phone down and looked at Ray.
“You spoke to the police?”
“Your mother told you.”
“She said you'd helped somebody. Then that picture was going around. The woman.”
Ray picked up the trim Jamie had set aside. It had a splinter loose at one end. He rubbed it between his fingers until it came away.
“Car broke down. I gave her a lift. She goes missing, they want to know where she was. That's all.”
“They found her?”
“Not yet.”
Jamie looked down at the phone. The picture might be there, the hand in the air and the child's elbow. Ray wanted him to pick it up and show it, so he could be the person who had once stood beside her car. He didn't want the picture between them on the bench.
“You knew her?” Jamie asked.
“No.”
The word was easier said here than in the room with Ortiz. Here his son had a reason to believe that an answer might be all there was. He could put down the wood, finish his tea, leave Jamie to think of Nadia as someone who had passed through his father's morning.
“I told them what I could,” he said.
“Okay.”
Jamie began wiping the container lid with the napkin. Ray could not tell whether he was waiting for more. He looked at the red mark in the little reflection from a lamp and touched it, then wished he hadn't.
“You working on this all night?” he asked.
“No. I've got to stop sometime.”
“What does she want it back by?”
“Tomorrow, if I can. I told her Wednesday.”
Jamie described what remained. Not much, though each thing would have to be done without hurry. He wasn't trying to restore every mark. The woman who owned it wanted the cabinet she'd had for years, with the parts that didn't work made usable again. Jamie had talked to her about what she did and didn't want changed. He said he should have asked more before agreeing the price, and Ray asked whether he could tell her that.
“It was my price,” Jamie said. “I'll know next time.”
Ray let him show the last piece. He held it when asked and handed it back.
For a few minutes Jamie worked and Ray sat with the tea cooling in his hands. The quiet wasn't empty. His son stopped to reach for something, found it where he'd put it, went on. He could come here next week and sit in the same chair, hear about a customer, an awkward room, somebody else's mistake. Nobody would ask him to make any sense of the day before he could be allowed to remain.
“You want to come over when this is out of the way?” Jamie asked.
“Here?”
“No, for food. Proper food. I can cook something.”
“You don't have to feed me every time.”
“I eat. You can do it at the same time.”
“Friday?”
“Friday's good.”
Ray nodded. His son was already planning what he'd need. He said he could ask Ruth, except the house was small and they might have to eat off their knees; then he said she probably wouldn't mind. It was a plan for three people whose only difficulty was finding enough chairs.
Ray could have said wait. There were things happening, perhaps they'd do it another time. He let Jamie take his phone and put Friday into the little calendar. He watched his son make the arrangement real, the quick movement of his thumb, the check that he'd chosen the right time.
“Seven?” Jamie asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell Mom.”
“You tell her. She'll be pleased.”
He had said pleased because that was the right word for what Ruth would feel, hearing that their son wanted them over for supper. Then he couldn't stop thinking of her reading the message. He could almost hear her voice saying what she would bring. He wanted to be in the kitchen when she said it.
Jamie set the phone aside and worked again. Ray let a few minutes pass before checking the time. He had to get the groceries, then get to the cabin. He would have to leave Jamie working.
“I ought to go,” he said.
“All right. Thanks for coming.”
“Didn't do much.”
“You held the thing.”
“Put that in my review.”
“I'll leave that out,” Jamie said.
Ray put his coat on. He wanted to take the chair's warmth with him, sit in the pickup for a minute before he started driving. He'd get stiff if he did. He picked up the empty tea cup instead and took it to the kettle.
Jamie came to the door to see him out. He said he'd bring the blanket to Ruth if Ray wanted to leave it. Ray had forgotten all about the blanket. He said that would be fine.
Jamie had already turned back to the workbench when Ray looked from the pickup. He started the engine quietly, as though there were a quiet way to do it, wanting to hear the sander start again before he left.