Chapter 9: The Stairs

The call came on the sixth of November, in the middle of a clogged drain.

I was on my back under the sink in 5A with my phone on my chest.

"Dara Keller? This is St. Brendan's in Madison, the maintenance department."

It was the supervisor who had laid me off in July.

"We have an opening, and the director asked for you by name."

They offered sixty-two thousand dollars and a start date in January.

I said I'd think about it, and I lay there looking at the pipe.

Then I laughed, because for the first time in my life somebody was begging me to come back to something.

Nobody in this building could have known it would happen.

Not even the man in 2B.

I told him that night, in his kitchen, over a soup he had actually learned to make.

He set the ladle down very carefully.

"Madison," Perry said.

"The old job. More money. January."

"That's good."

"Is it?"

"It's a good job. You were good at it," he said, and his voice was warm and even.

"Take it if you want it. I'll understand."

I put down my spoon.

"Say that again."

"I'll understand."

"That's the problem," I said. "You're being nice at me."

"I'm trying to be fair."

"You're being a saint. It's the Book in a better coat."

His face went still.

"That's not what this is."

"You know exactly what I'll feel when you say a sentence like that."

"You've got a version of me in your head, and she needs to be handled gently."

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