Chapter 14: The Towel Left Flat
The time clock was by the back hall next to the hand sink. I stood there with my card in my hand and didn't swipe it.
Ethan hadn't moved from the open door. He had his duffel at his feet, his hands at his sides like he was trying not to take up space. The lunch crowd had thinned to two tables. Diane was at the register giving me that look that said she understood but also that she needed someone on the floor.
I needed those hours. That was the truth I kept doing math on. I'd picked up every extra shift I could since Ethan's deployment got extended, and rent was due on the fifth and my car insurance had already auto-drafted. Clocking out at ten thirty instead of two meant I'd lose almost four hours. I could feel the number in my stomach.
But I couldn't wipe another table. I couldn't ask if anyone needed a refill while my husband stood in uniform by the door and that folded letter sat on the counter.
I swiped the card. The machine beeped and stamped 10:32. Diane raised her eyebrows.
"I have to clock out," I said. My voice was lower than I meant it to be. "I can't serve customers while I'm pretending nothing happened."
She didn't argue. She just nodded once and reached for the towel I'd left by the register. I stopped her.
"I got it," I said.
I went back to the metal counter where I'd been working all morning. The white towel was still there, bunched where I'd clutched it when Ethan first appeared in the window. It was damp at the corner where I'd been wiping. I picked it up.
For nine months I'd held onto things that way. The towel when I was nervous. The edge of the counter when Diane asked if I was okay. My phone when I didn't want to answer his calls because I didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound like I was mad at him for doing his job. I'd been holding everything so tight my knuckles ached.
I shook the towel out once. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I folded it in half, then in half again, smoothing the edges with my palm the way I was supposed to at the start of a shift, not the end. The terry cloth was worn soft in the middle. I laid it flat on the metal counter, perfectly square, the folded edge lined up with the counter's edge.
I didn't ball it up. I didn't shove it in the laundry bin. I left it there, open and flat, like I was done using it to hide my hands.
Ethan watched me do it. He didn't say anything, but his eyes followed the movement.
I picked up the letter — still folded, the crease sharp from where I'd refolded it after he'd read it — and slipped it into the pocket of my apron. Then I untied the apron and hung it on the hook by the kitchen window.
"I don't want to go back to the apartment," I said to him. I wasn't sure he'd hear me over the quiet clink of dishes. "Not yet."
He nodded, waiting.
"Will you walk with me?" I asked. "Not inside. Just around the block. I don't want glass between us when we talk."
It was the first time I'd asked him for anything directly since he'd been home. For months my texts had been logistics — got the mail, paid the electric, your mom called. Asking him to walk around the block felt bigger than it should have.
Ethan glanced at Diane, asking permission without words. She waved him off.
"Go on," she said. "I've got the floor."
He picked up his duffel and stepped back just enough to hold the open glass door for me. The bell over the door didn't jingle because the door was already open, but the cold air from outside came in stronger when I got close. Overcast daylight, the color of wet sidewalk, spilled across the threshold.
I stopped at the counter one more time and looked at the towel. It sat there, white against the steel, neat and still. For the first time all morning I wasn't holding it. Anyone coming in would think someone had just cleaned and set it down. Only I knew it meant my shift was over, that I wasn't going to pick it back up and keep wiping the same spot.
May you like
I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Ethan fell in beside me, not ahead, not behind. The brick on the outside of the cafe was cold to the touch where my shoulder brushed it. We didn't touch each other. We didn't need to decide where we were going because there was only one block — past the laundromat, past the bus stop with the cracked plastic bench, back around to the front of the cafe again.
We started walking. The towel stayed behind on the counter, and the door eased shut behind us as the wind caught it.
