Too Afraid to Knock

Owen nearly dropped the lighter.

Damian put a hand over his to steady it.

"Easy."

The flame shook between them.

He drew once, deeply, then took the cigarette away and looked toward the windows above.

"Don't tell Clara."

Owen laughed, a broken sound.

"Which part?"

"The smoking."

"She just left."

Damian looked back at him.

"How long?"

"Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. I'll call the driver."

Damian took one step toward the entrance.

Then his face emptied of color.

Owen caught him badly, mostly by the sleeve, and shouted for help.

***

He slept for most of two days.

Walter came and went. So did another doctor. Clean dressings replaced old ones across Damian's back, and Owen learned not to look at the expressions exchanged over the bed.

Vince arrived on the second evening.

He had lost weight. He moved carefully when he bent to set down his bag.

Owen stood in the bedroom doorway looking at him.

"You're alive."

"Last I checked."

"Don't."

Vince stopped smiling.

Owen crossed the room and hit his shoulder with an open hand, harder than either expected.

"Months. Not one word."

"Couldn't."

"You could have tried."

Vince looked at the sleeping man.

"Didn't know we'd get back."

Owen's hand fell.

For a moment neither spoke.

Then Vince sat, and Owen brought him food without asking whether he wanted it.

***

When Damian woke properly, the first thing he asked was where Clara was staying.

Owen told him.

Then came work, money, the house, the men who hadn't returned, the ones who had.

Damian listened without interrupting until Owen described Clara keeping wages paid and setting aside Vince's share.

He looked toward his friend.

Vince studied the floor.

"She's good to us," Owen said.

Damian closed his eyes briefly.

"I know."

There was more Owen needed to say.

The detective had contacted him about a petition. Clara had been considering a way out. Nothing had been finalized; she hadn't completed the next appointments.

Damian listened, very still.

"Does she know I'm back?"

"Not yet. You said—"

"The cigarettes, Owen. I meant the cigarettes."

His friend stared at him.

Damian rubbed a hand over his face.

"Never mind. I'll go to her."

***

The question of a gift defeated all three of them.

Vince suggested a watch.

Owen said Clara already had one.

Damian suggested the gold sculpture kept in the hotel safe.

Owen looked at him.

"She is twenty-four, not a visiting oil minister."

They eventually asked the hotel's marketing director, a woman with the patience of somebody accustomed to explaining expensive things to men who could buy them but couldn't name them.

She brought a brochure.

Damian turned the pages.

"That's a saddle."

"Yes."

"She doesn't have a horse."

"You could buy one."

"She trips over flat carpets. Next."

The marketing director asked what Clara drove now.

"Nothing much," Damian said.

"Then start with what she needs, not what would look impressive in the driveway."

He disliked the advice enough to recognize it was probably good.

A car, eventually.

Not the loudest one. Not the fastest. The marketing director gently persuaded him that giving Clara something she couldn't park outside work without attracting a crowd would not improve her life.

A silver convertible arrived two days later.

Small. Elegant. Warm leather inside.

Damian ran his hand over the steering wheel.

He wanted to see her smile when she sat in it.

He had survived a great many things by keeping the picture of her face somewhere safe in his head.

Now he couldn't wait another evening.

***

Before they left, Owen brought up a bag from the old house.

"Her things?" Damian asked.

"Some of yours. I kept them separately."

Damian opened it. The red scarf lay on top of a folded sweater. Beneath that was the plain lip balm she had given him, almost used up.

He picked it up, turned it between his fingers, and put it in his pocket.

"Did she ask about these?"

"She asked about everything."

Damian looked at him.

"I couldn't tell her anything," Owen said. "I tried to find something useful to say. Most days I didn't have it."

"I know."

"No. You don't. Not yet."

Damian sat on the edge of the desk. The bag remained open between them.

Owen took off his glasses.

"She told me not to vanish again without saying something. That was all she asked for herself. Not more money. Not a different house. A sentence before I went somewhere."

For a while, Damian looked at the scarf.

"I thought no news would be better than bad news," he said.

"Better for whom?"

Damian didn't answer.

When he stood, his back pulled painfully beneath the clean shirt. He hid it by reaching for his coat. Owen saw and let him.

"Take the tablets Walter left," he said. "Don't drive if they make you drowsy."

"You sound like her."

"Someone has to until you get there."

Damian closed the bag carefully. He left the scarf inside, but kept the little cylinder in his pocket, where his fingers could find it without looking.

He drove to Westbridge on Friday.

The journey felt longer than any of the ones he'd made to come home.

He should have had his hair cut. Should have bought a shirt that sat properly across his shoulders. Should, perhaps, have called first.

But a call could be refused.

A surprise could only be spoiled after you had arrived.

He parked across from the practice and waited.

At six, Julian Ashford pulled up.

Damian watched him get out with an umbrella.

He watched Clara come through the doors carrying her work bag.

He watched her smile politely, say something, and let Julian take the bag while she got into his car.

Damian sat so still his back began to ache.

Then he started the engine and followed.

***

The restaurant had low lights and too much glass.

He chose a table behind hers and sat facing away.

An idiotic decision.

He knew that.

He made it anyway.

Clara ordered mushroom soup, steak, a little foie gras, then several things she meant to share.

Damian looked at the water in his glass.

The snow outside the apartment. A room-service tray. Her head emerging from the duvet because the soup smelled good.

He smiled before he could stop himself.

Then he heard her speaking about Willowbend.

She was different.

Not entirely. He could hear the familiar rise in her voice when she became interested. But now she spoke with confidence about the settlements, the historic street, the risk of creating a place people photographed and left without spending a night.

Julian understood her.

He answered in the same easy language. Development phases. Local trades. Visitors who stayed long enough to put money into the town instead of only taking pictures out of it.

Damian knew the river. The roads. The families who lived beside them.

He didn't know half the words they used to explain those lives.

He looked down at his hands.

The new scar across his thumb still shone red.

He folded them beneath the table.

"You're good at this," Julian said.

Clara gave a small laugh.

"Ask my professor. He has a list of things I still do wrong."

Damian could picture the smile that went with it.

He wanted to turn around so badly his chest hurt.

Then Julian said, "Have you thought about a master's?"

"Of course."

"I'm going to Cambridge next year. Doctoral work. I've spoken to someone who'd look at your portfolio."

The room became very quiet around Damian.

Clara didn't answer immediately.

He listened to the space where her voice should have been.

"You mean that?" she asked at last.

"Yes. You have choices, Clara. More than waiting here for someone who may never come back."

Damian's fingers tightened beneath the table.

The scar across his thumb opened against his nail.