When the Maid Rules Rogues

Chapter 2 — When He Left, I Remembered

I watched him walk away. His back was straight, his steps even, and he did not look over his shoulder. The SUV door shut, the engine faded, and the street became ordinary again. I pressed my hand to my bandaged shin and told myself to breathe. Watching him leave pulled me backward in time whether I wanted it or not. I could not help it. The past came in like a tide.

Years ago, I was a stray who slept where fences met weeds. I had no pack, no money, and no name anyone would answer to. The patrol found me near dusk and brought me inside the walls. I kept my head down. I worked. I learned the kitchen hours and the quiet hallways and how to move without drawing the eye. That is how I was when they carried him in from the south line—mud on his boots, blood on his trouser leg, jaw tight enough to crack.

Alpha Anderson was the kind of man who filled a room even when he was silent. That night he did not feel like a legend. He felt like a man who had been broken by force. The healer spoke few words. The set of the leg was bad. The brace came next. They said “wheelchair" in a flat tone, like a sentence that had already been passed. Everyone stood straighter when his mother walked in. She was the Luna. She ordered the chair placed where light fell straight from the window. Then she sat at his head while they worked.

I held the lamp. I kept my hands steady. When pain took him by the throat, I looked at the flame instead of his face and did not drop the light. Afterward I wiped the basin, gathered the used cloth, and left the room as clean as I found it. It was not kindness, not yet. It was a job.

The days that followed settled into simple pieces. Morning rounds. Cloths to heat. Broth to carry. Lists to check. He followed the healer's orders because stubbornness is its own kind of discipline. He hated the chair. He hated the way the wheels caught on rugs and how the frame reminded him at every doorway that he could not cross a threshold on his own. He hated when people knocked before entering, as if pity had to ask permission before stepping in. He kept the door locked and let the room get dark.

I started walking in without knocking. The first time, he frowned. The second time, he warned me to leave. The third time, I rolled the chair to the balcony, threw the drapes wide, and told him the sun was out and the courtyard air would do his knee some good. He called me insolent. I told him he could fire me later. Then I pushed the chair into the light and parked it there.

He sat stiff for a full minute, breathing through his teeth, angry at me, angry at himself, angry at the world. Then he lowered his shoulders and let the warmth land on his face. It wasn't a victory. It was a start.

After that, I ignored the lock. I brought a second chair and put my feet up on the rail so he would not feel watched. I read the smallest scrap of newspaper out loud. I named the people who crossed the courtyard, not with titles, just with things I noticed. “Blue coat, fast hands." “Slow walker, heavy shoes." He would grunt or not, depending on the day. When the sun moved, I moved him with it, and when the light went, I closed the curtains and put the lamp on the low table so the shadows would be soft instead of cruel.

The healer taught me the massage. “Hand flat. Work the muscle. Count out loud so he doesn't hold his breath," she said. I did as told. I learned the lines of his knee the way a seamstress learns a familiar cloth. Scar tissue does not forget where it wants to be. My fingers pressed and drew and pressed again. When he swore, I kept counting. When he tried to pull away, I set my other hand over his brace and said, “Five more. Then rest." He called me stubborn. I said, “You are worse. I am only matching you."

There were days he would not leave the room. On those days I opened the window and let the sounds of the house come in—boots at the back door, someone laughing near the pantry, Ben's low voice in the corridor. I brought the small folding table to the balcony and set cards on it so he would have something to do with his hands besides clench them. He did not want to play. I made two neat piles and played against myself. I let him correct my mistakes. He pretended not to care and corrected them anyway.

Sometimes he pushed me away with words. “I don't need you hovering," he would say. I answered plainly. “I am not hovering. I am working. You can tell me to stop, but I won't until the hour is finished." He would glare, then look at the clock, and then let me finish the hour.

On good days he rolled himself to the threshold and gripped the door frame and stood. The chair stayed behind like a shadow he didn't want. He took one step, then two, each step a clear decision. I walked half a pace away, close enough to catch, far enough to let him try. When the muscle seized, I said, “Breathe." He said, “Don't tell me to breathe." I said, “Then do it without being told." His mouth twitched like he wanted to smile and did not give himself permission. He stood taller anyway.

The Luna watched without stepping in. She saw me pull him out into the sun. She saw me take the insults without answering back. She saw me bring the chair to the balcony and prop the door with a book so the wheels would not catch. She said nothing for a long time. Then one evening she sent for me.

Her room was warm and plain. She poured tea for both of us with her own hands. “You are useful," she said. I nodded. “You do not shake when he does," she said next. I nodded again. “I need the house to keep running. He needs steadiness more than he needs praise." Another nod. I did not know where this was going, so I kept my mouth closed and my back straight.

“Would you marry my son?" she asked.

I set the cup down because I did not trust my fingers. I thought she was joking. She was not. “I am a servant," I said. “I am nobody."

“You are a person who keeps her word," she said. “You will not make a scene in public. You will tell him the truth when others try to please him with lies. You will keep him on schedule, bring him into the light when he hides, and make sure he eats when he is thinking too hard. That is what I am asking. I am not selling you a dream. I will not promise you his love."

“What will you promise me?" I asked.

“A room that is yours. A name that does not vanish because someone gets angry. A seat at the table when decisions are made," she said. “You will not have to pretend you were born somewhere else."

I looked at my hands. I thought of the fence and the weeds, the cold floors of other houses, the way a locked door can turn a person into a ghost. I thought of him standing on his own for the first time, sweat on his lip, eyes fixed on the far wall. I thought of the chair in the sun and the cards on the table and the hour I made him finish even when he did not want to.

“Yes," I said. The word was simple. It fit in my mouth without hurting me.

After that, nothing seemed to change and everything did. There was no ceremony. There were two signatures and a ledger line, and then my name sat beside his in a place I had never imagined it could be. He did not come to my room that night. I left a tray and a lamp and waited until the lamp guttered. Ben knocked and said, “He won't be coming." I said, “I know," and blew the light out.

In the morning I carried breakfast to his office and set it down without comment. He stood at the window, cane at his side. The brace line showed under the trouser leg. “We start at the hour," I said, like always. “If we keep pace, you will be done before noon."

He looked at me and spoke in a voice that could cut. “Do not pretend to be my wife," he said. “I don't need that."

“I'm not pretending," I said. “I'm here to work." I tapped the schedule. “Finish the set."

He sat, because work was easier than argument. I wrapped the knee. We counted. “Heel," I said. “Hold." He obeyed because obedience cost less than pain. When the cloth went cold, I changed it. When his breath hitched, I kept my voice even and gave him numbers instead of comfort. Numbers helped. He finished the set and did not throw the towel. Small progress still counts.

At noon he reached for the cane and then left it where it leaned. Pride was a habit he was trying to keep. We walked the hall, slow and steady. He said nothing. I said little. There was no poem in it. There was only a man who wanted to walk and a woman who kept the pace and a hallway that had learned all our sounds.

One afternoon he unlocked a room I had never seen. A single lamp. A portrait on the wall. A girl with bright eyes caught laughing. “Her name is Serena," he said. “I loved her. She went to the city. I won't love anyone else."

I stood and let the sentence be what it was. It did not surprise me. It still hurt. He added, “I will not come to your bed. I won't put on a show. I won't use you to make the pack comfortable." I nodded. “Understood," I said. That was the truth I was owed. I took it and did not argue with it.

We went back to the hallway and finished the laps.

Later that week he asked me to keep the marriage quiet. “No one can know," he said. “Not now." I answered, “All right." I did not ask for reasons. I could see them without being told. He could not limp and hold authority if the house smelled gossip. He could not face Serena and explain me at the same time. He could not carry three loads at once. I could carry one for him. That was enough.

He healed. The chair gathered dust. The brace stayed but did not own him. He took the stairs with his hand on the rail and only a small pause at the landing. When he stumbled, I stood where he could find balance and I did not say a word. When he swore, I said, “Again." When he reached the end of the hall without touching the cane, I met his eyes for one heartbeat and then looked away so the moment could stay clean.

These are the pieces I remember when I watch him go to her. The light on the balcony. The way my palms learned his knee. The sound of the wheels on the threshold. The straightening of his back inch by inch. The simple work of pulling a stubborn man into the sun.

The engine on the street faded. I took one slow breath. The past went quiet again. I picked up my basket, tested my weight on the bad leg, and turned toward home. Whatever else he does, I know what I did. I kept him moving when he wanted to stop. I opened the curtains when he wanted the dark. I counted the steps until the steps belonged to him again. That is enough of a truth for one day.