Tom made the call on Thursday from his study. I was putting laundry away when I heard him say, “I accepted too quickly on the location question.”
I stopped outside the room, then moved on. I didn’t want to stand there collecting the version of himself he presented to his employer.
He found me in Poppy’s room afterwards.
“They’re willing to discuss a phased start. They haven’t promised anything beyond that.”
“What did you ask for?”
“A written account of the attendance requirement. A later date for the full change. And time to work out whether I can do it.”
I folded a jumper inside out and had to unfold it again.
“Thank you for telling them.”
“I should have told you first.”
“Yes.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. A small plastic horse fell behind the headboard.
“Do you want me to turn it down?”
“I want us to discuss an actual offer, with actual options. I don’t want to become the reason you tell yourself you couldn’t have it.”
He looked at me for a long time.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t think you’d plan to.”
That was harder for him to answer. He bent to retrieve the horse, discovered it was beyond reach and fetched a ruler from Poppy’s desk.
We spent the next half-hour on the existing week, not the imagined new life. Tuesday morning required school drop-off. The dentist appointment on Thursday needed someone who could leave work early. Art club ended at an inconvenient time for both of us, which did not automatically make it my inconvenience.
Tom offered to handle Tuesday and the dentist. He put the details in his work calendar as well as ours.
“What if your meeting runs over?” I asked.
“Then I leave it.”
He said it with more confidence than experience. I decided to let Tuesday test it.
We also checked the cost of the after-school club for the days neither of us could manage. Tom started to compare it with what I earned in the extra hours, then stopped halfway through the calculation.
“That isn’t just a cost of your job,” he said.
“No.”
He drew a line through the heading and wrote household instead. I watched him do it. The amount did not change, but the conversation did. We kept the place provisionally and agreed when to review it.
At the library later, Marianne gave me the opening keys and showed me the alarm panel. I entered the code twice while she watched, then tried it on my own.
The extra hours involved a reading session and helping people use the computers. I spent Friday preparing materials. A woman wanted a large-print book club list; a man needed help locating a form he had already completed twice because he kept closing the window without saving.
Their problems were specific. I could help without promising to repair their lives.
On Tuesday, Tom discovered that school shoes could disappear between the front door and breakfast. Poppy insisted they had been there. He looked at me across the kitchen.
I was wearing my coat.
“Last time, one was under the little table,” I said. “I need to go.”
He nodded, then asked Poppy to help him look. I left before the shoes were found.
At work, I checked my phone once. There was a photograph of Poppy at the school gate, holding up both feet in an arrangement that looked dangerous.
Delivered with all required limbs and footwear, Tom had written.
I smiled and put the phone away.
The morning was busy. A child spilled water over the craft sheets. The printer recovered just as the internet failed. At eleven, the reading session settled into an attentive silence so complete that I could hear rain touching the high windows.
For twenty minutes I thought about the story in my hands and nothing else.
When the session ended, I found Priya waiting near the returns desk. She wasn’t carrying the review boxes. Her bag was small, and she held it with both hands.
“Have you got ten minutes?”
“After I clear these chairs.”
She helped without being asked. When the last chair was stacked, she checked whether the staffroom was private.
“There are people in there. We can walk.”
We went as far as the covered passage beside the shops. Rain dripped from the edge of the roof between two empty planters.
“I need to tell you something before somebody else turns it into a discovery,” she said.
My stomach tightened.
“Is it about the review?”
“Partly. It’s about me.”
She looked straight at me, without the briskness she used when discussing other people’s records.
“I borrowed money from the fund last year.”
For a second I heard only the rain.
Then she added, “And I’ve asked for that part to be checked by someone who isn’t my friend.”