Chapter 14: The Porch Light

Mara's POV

I woke at six with my hand still aching from the tire iron.

The cabin was quiet, and the stove had burned down to a red eye.

Hyunjin was asleep in the loft. He had gone up the ladder last night without a word and had not looked at me.

Chan's blanket was folded on the daybed, and Chan was gone.

I found him on the porch.

He stood on a kitchen chair under the doorway with his arms over his head, screwing a new bulb into the fixture.

He had found the box in my junk drawer, under the takeout menus.

"That's been out since Sunday," I said.

"I know. I counted."

He got down, and flicked the switch, and the porch went yellow.

It lit the steps, the railing, the wet boards, and both of us.

I had spent two days not looking at that bulb.

"Thank you," I said.

"It was the least I could do."

"Don't say that. It's not the least. It's a bulb."

He almost smiled.

I'd made coffee, and I handed him a mug and sat on the top step in my hoodie and my socks.

The fog was in the yard and over the bluff, and the pines dripped.

Chan sat down next to me, careful of his ribs, a good foot away.

"I'm going to apologize," he said, "and I'm going to do it badly."

"Go on."

"I'm not good at this part."

"Which part?"

"Being wrong."

"Chan, you're thirty. You must have practiced."

"Twenty-nine."

"Even worse."

He laughed, a short breath through the nose, and turned the mug in his hands.

"On the patio I told you to stay out of sight of your own town," he said.

"You did."

"I said it because I was frightened. That's the reason, not the excuse.

"I've been afraid for Hyunjin for two years, and it makes me say things I don't mean. I meant the fear. I did not mean you."

"You said, 'Go home and stay home.'"

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