SEVENTEEN CALLS
The temperature fell to twenty-one degrees after midnight.
Lena knew because the greenhouse alarm began beeping at 1:17 in the morning.
She woke on the sofa in her mother's living room still wearing jeans and a sweater.
For several disoriented seconds she thought the sound came from a hospital monitor.
Then she saw the small temperature receiver blinking red on the bookshelf.
GREENHOUSE LOW: 39°F.
She swore, pulled on boots, and ran outside.
The lawn had hardened beneath frost.
Inside the greenhouse, the air was still warmer than outside but dropping quickly.
The heater had stopped.
Lena checked the breaker first.
Nothing.
She opened the utility panel beneath the boiler and stared at a collection of valves, wires, and gauges she had confidently told Peter she understood.
She understood plants.
Her mother had understood boilers.
There was a difference.
The temperature display changed to thirty-eight.
Lena found Peter's number in her phone without admitting to herself that she had never deleted it.
The number was still the same.
That seemed unreasonable.
She called.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Lena?”
His voice was thick with sleep.
“The boiler stopped.”
A pause.
“What temperature?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“Check the pressure gauge.”
She crouched.
“Twelve.”
“That's fine. Red reset button on the left panel. Press once.”
She did.
The boiler groaned, clicked, and went quiet.
“Nothing.”
“I'll be there in ten minutes.”
“You don't need to—”
He had already ended the call.
Nine minutes later, headlights crossed the back garden.
Peter entered carrying the red toolbox and wearing a coat over a gray T-shirt.
His hair was flattened on one side.
Lena almost smiled again.
This was becoming a problem.
“Move the roses away from the exterior glass,” he said.
She did not argue.
They worked without speaking.
Lena dragged the most fragile pots toward the center aisle while Peter removed the boiler panel.
The greenhouse temperature reached thirty-six.
Peter muttered something and reached deeper into the unit.
“What?”
“Circulation pump.”
“Bad?”
“Annoying.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Temporarily.”
“How temporarily?”
“Long enough not to kill June's roses tonight.”
He removed a small component, cleaned it, reseated the connection, and tried the reset.
The boiler started.
A low mechanical rumble moved through the greenhouse.
Lena exhaled.
Peter remained kneeling beside the machine.
“Give it five minutes.”
The temperature stopped falling.
They sat on opposite sides of the central planting table while warm air slowly returned to the pipes.
Lena wrapped both hands around herself.
Peter took off his coat and held it toward her.
“No.”
“You're shaking.”
“I ran outside without a coat.”
“Yes.”
“I don't need yours.”
“I didn't say you did.”
She took it.
The canvas was cold at first.
Then she found warmth trapped inside the lining.
Peter sat back against the cedar bench.
At one in the morning, beneath yellow greenhouse lamps, he looked less guarded.
Lena suspected she did too.
“How long did you hate me?” she asked.
Peter rubbed one hand over his face.
“That's a terrible question for one-thirty in the morning.”
“You can leave.”
“You're wearing my coat.”
She looked down.
“Fine. Two in the morning.”
Peter almost smiled.
Then he became serious.
“I don't think I hated you.”
“I hated you.”
“I know.”
“No. You knew I was angry. That's different.”
He waited.
Lena looked toward the thermometer.
Forty degrees.
“I hated how easy you made it look.”
“What?”
“Losing me.”
Peter frowned.
“You signed the papers in three days.”
“My lawyer told me dragging it out would only make things worse.”
“So you signed.”
“You filed.”
“Because you stopped calling.”
“Because you told me to stop.”
Lena closed her eyes briefly.
“There we are again.”
“Yes.”
“You know what I thought every time you called?”
Peter shook his head.
“I thought you were going to say you had bought a ticket.”
He looked down.
“And every time you asked me to wait another week, I heard something else.”
“What?”
“That I wasn't enough reason to leave.”
Peter leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“I thought I was doing the opposite.”
“You've said.”
“I know.”
“What did you hear?”
“When?”
“When I left.”
Peter stared at the stone floor.
“I heard you say you were tired of waiting for me to become somebody who wanted your life.”
Lena remembered saying something close to that.
“That wasn't what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I thought you didn't want a life with me outside Maple Hollow.”
“I did.”
“Then why had every plan become another reason to stay?”
“My shop was here.”
“So was my mother.”
“And you wanted to leave both.”
“I wanted us to have something that wasn't inherited.”
The words came more sharply than she intended.
Peter looked at her.
Lena continued.
“Your shop had been your father's. The house we rented belonged to your uncle. My mother called every time something broke. Every Sunday was dinner at one family or the other. I was twenty-nine years old and felt like we had never once chosen the shape of our own life.”
“I didn't know that.”
“I told you.”
“You told me you were tired of the town.”
“That was part of it.”
“You said Boston was our chance.”
“It was.”
“I agreed.”
“Until you didn't.”
Peter looked toward the boiler.
“Until June needed help.”
Lena pulled his coat tighter around her.
“And that's what I saw. The second this town asked something from you, I lost.”
Peter nodded slowly.
“I can understand that now.”
“You couldn't then?”
“I was scared.”
Lena almost laughed.
“Of Boston?”
“Of failing there.”
The admission surprised her.
Peter had always appeared comfortable with his competence. He could build cabinets, repair roofs, negotiate with suppliers, identify birds by sound, and talk to strangers without the faint social panic Lena carried into every networking event.
“You never said that.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you were excited.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“I didn't want you to think you had to choose between the job and me.”
Lena stared at him.
“You were afraid I'd stay.”
“Yes.”
The irony was almost painful.
“So you kept the fear to yourself because you didn't want to influence my choice.”
“Yes.”
“And when Mom's problem happened, you kept that from me for the same reason.”
“Yes.”
“And I interpreted both silences as proof you didn't care enough to come.”
“Yes.”
Lena rested her forehead against one hand.
“We were idiots.”
Peter gave a small breath of laughter.
“We were twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine is old enough to speak.”
“Apparently not for us.”
The heater clicked steadily.
Forty-three degrees.
Lena looked at him.
“Why didn't you come to the funeral?”
Peter's expression changed.
“I did.”
“No, you didn't.”
“I stood across the road.”
“That does not count.”
“I wasn't sure you wanted me there.”
“I didn't.”
“Then I made the correct decision.”
“I also looked for you.”
Peter blinked.
Lena immediately regretted the honesty.
She looked toward the roses.
“My mother loved you.”
“I loved her too.”
That hurt in a different place.
Lena nodded.
“She must have been lonely.”
“She was sometimes.”
“Did she talk about being sick?”
“When she felt like it.”
“She hated pity.”
“She hated soup.”
Lena turned.
“What?”
“People kept bringing soup.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
“That sounds right.”
“She said illness turned every woman over fifty in Vermont into a broth delivery system.”
Lena covered her mouth.
Peter smiled.
It was the first unguarded smile she had seen from him in eleven years.
The greenhouse altered around it.
Not literally.
Nothing dramatic happened.
The heater continued working. Frost remained on the outside glass. Her mother's gardening gloves still hung beside the sink.
But Peter became briefly recognizable as the man Lena had once known better than anyone.
She hated how much she missed him.
The feeling frightened her enough to make her stand.
“Temperature's forty-five.”
Peter checked the gauge.
“It'll hold.”
Lena removed his coat.
When she handed it back, their fingers touched.
Neither withdrew immediately.
The contact lasted perhaps one second.
Enough.
Peter took the coat.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
He gathered his tools.
At the door, Lena said, “Peter.”
He turned.
“I didn't stop answering because I stopped caring.”
His expression tightened.
“I know that now.”
“You couldn't have.”
“No.”
“Then don't make it easier than it was.”
He considered that.
“All right.”
Lena swallowed.
“I stopped because every conversation made me hope you were coming.”
Peter looked at her for several seconds.
“When you stopped answering,” he said quietly, “I thought it meant you had finally stopped hoping.”
Neither had anything useful to add.
He left.
Lena remained in the greenhouse until the temperature reached forty-eight.