Spring Morning

I was halfway up the ladder when the first drop hit my phone. "Please tell me that's rain," Daniel said from below. "It's rain." "Then why are you looking at it like it insulted you?" "Because it's coming through the roof." The drop landed on the screen again. I wiped it on my sleeve, which was already damp from the shoulder down. Beyond the glass, the early-spring sky over Bellwether Bay had turned the color of dirty wool. A dozen white chairs stood in rows beneath the conservatory's iron ribs. Two staff members were carrying them toward the lobby. The bride and groom were due in forty minutes. "Call Mason," Daniel said. "I did. He's on his way." "He said that yesterday." "Then I'll call him again." I climbed one rung higher and pressed the wrench against the roof brace. The leak ran along the seam above the east aisle. If I could tighten the loose panel before the ceremony, the guests might never see it. The ceremony would be dry, the photographs would be usable, and I could spend Monday arguing with the roofing contractor instead of with a bride who had paid us for a garden venue. The phone vibrated against my palm. The screen showed a message from the county preservation office. I couldn't read it from the ladder. "Can you get that?" I called. Daniel stepped closer. "You want me to?" "I want you to tell me whether it's urgent." He glanced at the screen. His face changed, almost too subtly for me to catch from above. "What is it?" "It can wait." "Daniel." He put my phone down on the table beneath the ladder. "It's an email." "That's not what I asked." Before he could answer, the glass above me gave a sharp tick. I tightened the wrench. Water pattered onto my wrist, cold enough to make my fingers curl. "Claire, get down," Daniel said. "I can fix it." "Not if that panel slips." "I've fixed this roof before." "And I'm asking you to get down." The first guests were gathering in the lobby. Through the open doors I could hear low voices and the clink of glasses. I climbed down one rung, then another, irritated less by his tone than by the fact that he was right. I handed him the wrench. "Fine. You fix it." "I didn't say that." "You said get down." "I said the panel could slip." "So I got down." I went past him toward the lobby, where our event manager, Tessa, was speaking quietly with the couple. I apologized for the delay and told them the east aisle would be moved six feet west. The bride stared at the damp patch on my sleeve. "Will the glass hold?" she asked. "Yes," I said. "We're moving the chairs away from the leak, and the rest of the roof is sound." I believed it. That was the trouble with my job: I had learned to sound certain even when certainty was just the best tool I had. The ceremony started on time. I stood behind the service doors while the couple exchanged vows beneath the dry part of the roof. Daniel was nowhere in sight. When the guests began to move toward the terrace for photographs, I found him in the back office with my phone in his hand. "You read my email," I said. "I saw the subject line." "That isn't the same thing." "It said the grant deadline had moved up." "By how much?" "Two weeks." I reached for the phone. He held it out to me without an argument. For a moment, his fingers stayed around the edge while mine took hold of the case. "I need to tell you something," he said. The way he said it made me look up. He sat on the edge of my desk, still wearing the black jacket he'd put on for the ceremony. He was forty-one, broad-shouldered, with a small scar near his chin from the year we rebuilt the old greenhouse windows together. I knew the scar's story. I knew his coffee order and the names of his cousins. I knew how he sounded when a contractor tried to charge us twice for the same work. I had no idea what he was about to tell me. "I took the restoration job in Greyhaven," he said. "They want me to start at the end of April." The room went very still around us. I could hear chairs scraping in the lobby and the rain ticking against the roof. "You applied for that?" "Last month." "And interviewed?" "Yes." "You accepted?" "Yesterday." I set my phone on the desk. "When were you going to tell me?" "I'm telling you now." "That's not an answer." He stood and paced once between the desk and the file cabinet. "The offer came together quickly. It's good work, Claire. The old courthouse needs a full restoration. It's a two-year contract." "Where would you live?" "Greyhaven." "And where would I live?" He stopped. "I thought you'd come with me." I looked at him, waiting for the part that would make this make sense. He didn't add anything. "You thought I'd close Aster House, leave the people on our payroll, and move because you took a job you hadn't told me about?" "I didn't say close it." "What did you think I'd do with it?" "Sell your share, hire someone to manage it, figure it out. We've talked about expanding the grounds. Maybe it's time we stopped trying to make this place our whole life." "We haven't talked about that." "We have. You just don't remember it the way I do." I felt the old familiar heat rise in my chest, the impulse to prove each point with dates and documents. I could have told him that the last time he said we should hire a general manager, he'd promised to look at the numbers with me. I could have reminded him that he'd said he wanted to stay through the spring season, then the summer, then the loan renewal. Instead, I looked at the calendar on the wall. Our names were written across every month through December. "Was there anything else you were planning to decide for both of us?" I asked. "Don't do that." "Do what?" "Make this into a list of charges." "You accepted a two-year job and expected me to find out after you'd signed." "I didn't expect you to find out after I signed. I expected we'd talk about it." "After?" His jaw tightened. "I thought you'd understand why it mattered to me." "I might have, if you'd let me." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I can't keep asking you to choose me over this place." For years, I had wanted him to ask. Not to demand that I abandon my work, but to let me see that he knew there was a choice at all. Instead, he had made the decision in private and treated my agreement as the natural next step. I felt something inside me settle—not break, exactly. More like a door swinging shut after being left open too long. "Maybe we should get divorced," he said. He looked as if he had expected another round of argument. I could see it in the way his shoulders stayed raised, ready for me to push back. I put my hands flat on the desk. "Okay," I said. "Let's get divorced." He blinked. "Claire." "You said it." "I said maybe." "I heard you." The room hummed with the refrigerator in the staff kitchenette. From outside came the soft applause of the wedding guests. "Are you serious?" he asked. I picked up my phone. The grant deadline was now two weeks closer. The leak was still above us. The couple still needed the terrace set for photographs. "Yes," I said. "I'm serious."