The next morning, John woke on the couch.
The windows were gray with early light.
A blanket he didn’t own was draped over him, thick and soft, smelling faintly of lavender.
He sat up slowly.
The headache was gone, leaving only a dull weight behind his eyes.
On the coffee table sat a glass of water and a small plate with a few slices of toast, cold now.
Kate was in the kitchen.
She stood at the stove with her back to him, moving quietly as though she were trying not to wake him.
“You’re still here,” he said.
She turned.
“Yeah. I told you I was staying.”
He watched her.
She was wearing the same clothes as the night before, and there was a tiredness around her eyes that hadn’t been there a few days earlier.
“How did you get in?”
“You gave me a key last month. Don’t you remember?”
He didn’t.
But he didn’t say that.
She brought him coffee.
It was strong and hot, just the way he liked it.
“Thank you.”
“You can thank me by not doing that again.”
“I can’t promise that.”
She sat across from him, holding her own mug.
“I know.”
She looked at him for a moment.
The weeks that followed were quiet.
John fell into a routine.
He went to work, helped Harold with follow up work on the curriculum, finished grading his volunteer students’ essays, and sometimes went to Smokestack Center to listen from the back of the room.
Henry stopped by one evening.
He’d passed his law school entrance exam.
He looked different now.
Taller somehow, more certain of himself.
“I owe you,” Henry said.
“I mean it. If you hadn’t encouraged me, I don’t think I would have tried.”
“You would have.”
John smiled.
“You just needed to see it yourself.”
Henry grinned.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to tell people I said when I become a famous lawyer.”
Amy Harris came back once more in late October.
She was wearing a nicer jacket than before, and her hair had been trimmed.
She had a new song with her, the finished version of the one she’d played in John’s living room.
“I want you to hear it,” she said.
“Just the chorus. I think I got it right.”
She played it.
The melody had changed.
It was clearer now, more confident.
The lyrics John had helped her with were still there, but she’d added more around them.
The song felt whole.
“You finished it,” he said.
“That’s all you needed to do.”
November came cold.
The leaves turned brown and fell.
The sky stayed low and gray for days at a time.
John wore the same worn jacket every day because he hadn’t bothered to buy a new one.
He noticed that Ruth had started calling every Sunday.
She never asked personal questions.
She just told him what the weather was like, what she’d cooked, and whether he’d had lunch yet.
He never told her no.
One Friday evening, a letter arrived from Vermont.
John opened it slowly.
Inside was a note written by hand in careful, blocky letters.
I got your letter.
Thank you for taking care of my mother.
I’ll be coming back soon.
Not for Christmas yet.
But soon.
Stay where you are.
S.W.
John set the letter on his desk and looked out the window at the darkening street.
He thought about the man who had given him a name, a watch, and a mother he didn’t deserve.
He wondered how he’d ever repay that.
He didn’t know.
But he started writing a reply anyway.