Small Things You Promised novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Clean Floors

I put my hand flat on the legal pad, over his.

He woke up all at once.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

He looked at my face. Then at the back door, still open.

"You walked it."

"Down the hill and back. No hands."

He looked down at the empty box on the page.

He picked up the pen and checked it, very neatly.

Then he put the pen down and just sat there, with his jaw working.

"Wiley."

"Give me a second."

I gave him a second.

"Your two weeks are up Tuesday," I said.

"I know. I'll pack Monday night. Lu's going to be mad about the mini-split."

"Don't."

He looked up.

"Don't pack," I said. "Stay. You and Lu."

"Carlie."

"Not on a cot. Not in the spare room with your feet off the end."

I pressed my hand down on his. "I'm not saying it because I'm grateful."

"I'm saying it because I spent five years with somebody who promised everything and did nothing."

"I know."

"And two weeks with somebody who never promised me one thing out loud. He just did it."

He turned his hand over under mine and held on.

"Is that a yes?" he said. "You have to say it. I'm nervous."

"It's a yes. Stay."

So they stayed.

Lula's frog bin moved from the floor of the spare room to a shelf Wiley built over her new bed.

Wiley's boots stayed by the back door for good.

On a Saturday at the end of October, Ty knocked on that door.

Wiley was at the stove making pancakes.

Lula was at the table, drowning hers.

Missy was there, because Missy is always there on Saturdays.

I opened the door.

Ty stood on the back step, the one Wiley fixed.

He was in jeans and a Waddell T-shirt, faded.

He had a scraper in his hand. A real one, with a razor blade, the kind you use for old paint.

"I'm not here to talk," he said. "Can I come in for ten minutes?"

I looked back at the kitchen.

Wiley had turned around at the stove.

He looked at Ty. Then at me.

He didn't say anything.

He turned the burner down and waited.

"Ten minutes," I said.

Ty came in.

He didn't look at anybody.

He walked to the island and looked down at the floor.

At the dark circle in the linoleum, where his grandmother's ring had sat for six days in July.

Then he got down on his knees.

Nobody asked him to.

He started scraping.

It came up slow, a curl of black at a time.

He worked at it the way he used to work on a compressor, before he got too busy to do anything himself.

Lula watched him over her pancakes with her mouth open.

"Who's that?" she whispered to Missy.

"That's a man cleaning a floor, baby."

"Why?"

Missy thought about it.

"Because it's his mess," she said.

Ty didn't look up.

It took him eight minutes.

When he was done, there was just old linoleum there, the same as everywhere else.

He wiped it with a wet paper towel and stood up, slow, with one hand on the island.

He put the scraper in his back pocket.

Then he looked at me.

"I'm sorry I watched the game while you were on your knees," he said.

I didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry I threw away his note."

He didn't look at Wiley. He kept his eyes on me.

"I'm sorry about all of them. The ones you tried to help and I didn't."

He swallowed.

"I'm sorry I said it was no big deal. All of it. It was all a big deal. I just didn't want to do it."

The pancakes were burning a little. Wiley didn't move.

"I'm not asking for anything," Ty said. "I know I don't get anything. I just wanted it clean."

"Thank you, Ty," I said.

I meant it.

That was all I had for him, and he knew it.

He nodded.

"The thirty-one are in," he said. "The real ones. We finished Thursday."

"I heard."

"Mama let me come to Sunday dinner. First time since July."

"Good."

He went to the back door.

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