They did not do a counselor in the first month. Daniel said he did not want a stranger naming his kitchen. Alicia said she would go alone. She went twice, a woman named Helen who had a plant and no interest in cool jackets. Helen asked what Miles had been proud of. Alicia said the sleeves. Helen said the sleeves were not the sin. The sin was the chair. Alicia said I know. She cried in the car and not in the kitchen. The kitchen was Miles’s. She was done exploding his cereal.
Daniel asked the number again on a Thursday. Four months. Eight Saturdays, not all of them full. A puzzle once. A watch left. A jacket left. No key. No I love you said in the house. Julian had said it in the lot. Alicia had not said it back. Daniel heard the not and did not treat it as a medal. Not saying it was still a man in the office. He said that. She said yes. Yes was the dialect. They used it until it thinned.
Miles turned the Saturday into a story he told a friend at school: a jacket that swallowed him. The friend said cool. Miles said his dad didn’t think so. The teacher did not call. Alicia was grateful and guilty about the grateful. Grateful meant the school did not have the man. The man was a transfer. The transfer was a city over. Daniel looked the city up once and closed the tab. Closing the tab was a decision. He told Alicia he had closed it. She said thank you. Thank you was expensive. He took it without spending it on a return.
The site season ended. Saturdays became the backyard, a hose, a ball. Daniel was in the yard. Alicia was at the island. Miles ran between. The running was a ordinary they were trying to rebuild on purpose. Once Miles said, “The man doesn’t come anymore.” Daniel said, “No.” Miles said, “Good, I like when you’re here.” The like was a blade and a gift. Daniel caught the ball. He did not look at Alicia. Alicia heard it from the sink. She dried a bowl. The bowl was the rent. She paid it. The question what man had an answer. The answer was not in the yard. The yard was the after. They stood in it. The grass was green. The jacket was not on a chair. That was the whole visible repair, and it was not nothing, and it was not the end.