Chapter 5: First Night

We reached the bakery in twenty minutes and found it dark.

A brick lay in the middle of the front window, in a spray of broken glass.

Someone had spray-painted a single word on the pink awning.

It said, Bought.

My mother stood in the doorway in her robe and slippers with a rolling pin in her hand.

"It's fine," Rosanna said, before I could speak. "Nobody's hurt. The kid down the block saw a car."

"Mom."

"Hannah, I'm fine."

Behind me, Jonas got out of the car and stopped on the sidewalk.

My mother looked at him over my shoulder.

She had never seen him.

She looked for a long time.

"So you're the husband," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You were on the sixth floor for two weeks. You stood in the hall."

"Yes."

"Hm," Rosanna said, and gave him the rolling pin. "You're tall. Hold that."

She went inside to put the kettle on.

I stared after her.

"I don't know what that was," I said.

"I think she approved," Jonas said.

We boarded up the window with plywood from the alley, the two of us and Marcy, who held the flashlight and gave advice.

Jonas took his coat and cuff links off and worked in his shirtsleeves.

He drove nails with his jaw set and sawdust on his forearms.

I watched his hands.

I watched the muscle move in his back under the white cotton.

By midnight the window was covered and my mother was asleep in the apartment upstairs.

Marcy called a car and kissed my cheek.

"You look like a woman who has made a decision," she whispered. "Text me details."

Then we were alone in the back of Jonas's car.

Neither of us said anything for six blocks.

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