Please Use the Front Door

Dr. Carter listened to Avery’s account of the previous night without touching the coffee she’d just poured.

“Have you ever treated anyone like me?” he asked.

“Two,” she said. “Neither of them made their debut in a staff cottage.”

I studied the cabinet handles. Avery took a sip of water.

“What would you like us to do about your enclosure?” she asked him.

“Keep the branch,” he said at once.

She wrote that down.

“And the hook by the door.”

“What’s important about the hook?”

He looked at me. I decided I could live without getting that particular sweatshirt back.

Carter asked Avery who he wanted to tell. He chose the institute director, who came down that afternoon and offered him the old overnight duty room beside the greenhouse while he got his bearings. The director found a key. Carter arranged for Avery to come and go from his old enclosure when he wanted. Avery said yes to both things and asked whether the duty room got the morning sun.

“Only if you open the blinds,” Carter said.

He turned to me. “I’ll need a pillow.”

“I can take you to get one,” I said, with the confidence of a man who still had a pillow of his own.

Carter handed him the key. I’d been working with him for two weeks and hadn’t known how much I wanted to see him have a door that belonged to him until I watched him slip it into his pocket.

Before my next shift ended, I helped Avery set up a secondhand phone from the spare electronics drawer. Ben had donated it months before, along with a charger for an entirely different phone. Finding the right charger took longer than teaching Avery to send a text.

That evening, I heard a knock at exactly six fifteen.

Avery stood outside with a white African violet held at chest height. The tag was still attached. I’d joked at breakfast that flowers usually came before a discussion about children. He’d asked me whether it mattered how long the flowers lived.

“I got one that can keep going,” he said. “If we read the card.”

“Come in.”

He gave me the plant and went back out for the saucer. I’d just set it on the counter when he knocked again. I opened the door, took the saucer, and went to turn off the bathroom light. By then he’d gone to get a bag of potting mix he’d left on the bench.

He knocked a third time.

“Avery, you’re allowed to come back in if you’ve already been in here.”

“You told me to use the door.”

“You’re using it beautifully.”

He looked pleased. I tried to get the bag of soil from him without letting him see how pleased I was.

We spread newspaper across the floor and tried to repot the violet. Avery read each instruction aloud as if it was a step in a hostage negotiation. I told him the plant would survive a little improvisation and promptly tipped half the pot onto the floor.

“You have dirt on your face,” he said.

“I’m sure the plant appreciates the solidarity.”

He leaned over and brushed my cheek with his thumb. I’d had a perfectly good follow-up ready. It was gone by the time he moved his hand.

He swept the floor while I watered the plant. When we’d put everything away, he reached for his jacket.

“Wait,” I said. “Who’s going to watch the flower with me if you leave?”

He considered the violet. It had been inside for forty minutes and achieved nothing visible.

“I can stay another half hour,” he said.

We sat on the floor with our backs against the couch. He asked whether I thought the violet would turn toward the light while we watched. I said we’d probably have better luck if we turned our heads and gave it some privacy. We turned toward each other and stayed that way long enough for me to forget about the violet entirely.

“Would your boyfriend come over every night?” he asked.

“I’d have to get one first.”

I saw him open his mouth. My face got hot so fast I looked straight back at the plant.

“I’d like another dinner first,” I said.

“Okay.”

I waited for him to sound disappointed. He just asked me whether I liked tacos.

Later, after he’d gone, my phone buzzed. The first message he sent me was *Can I come over tomorrow?*

I wrote *Yes*. Then I added *I was about to ask you.*

The dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again.

*At six fifteen?*

I gave him a full minute to enjoy his victory before I replied.