Chapter 14: Measure Twice

Abel's house was a small brick bungalow with a workshop where the garage should have been.

I saw it from the truck window, a big open door and a band saw under a work light.

Inside, the front room smelled of cedar and floor wax.

There was one couch, one lamp, a bookshelf he had plainly built himself, and a hallway with a shut door at the end.

"Bathroom's on the left," he said. "Bed's through there. I changed the sheets this morning."

"This morning you didn't know I was coming."

"I change them on Mondays." He carried my bag in. "It's a coincidence that's very convenient for both of us."

Marla called at six.

I told her I was resting, and Abel took the phone from my hand and told her his address, his full name and the name of his sister, who was a lawyer.

"She'll check," he said, handing the phone back. "She's a good friend."

"She's the best one I have," I said, and lay down in his bed with all my clothes on.

It was a plain bed in a plain room, and the pillow smelled of him.

I slept until the fever came.

It woke me at two in the morning, a heat that started in my chest and rolled outward until my skin hurt.

Then the chills took me, and my teeth went again.

The door opened.

Abel stood there in a gray T-shirt with a basin in one hand and a folded cloth over his shoulder.

"I heard the bed," he said.

"I'm fine."

"That's your lie for the week. I'm not even going to charge you."

He set the basin on the nightstand, wrung the cloth out and sat on the edge of the mattress.

"May I?"

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