It is almost dark, and the porch light has not been on in three weeks because no one has turned it on since Lorna left. The air off the yard smells like cut grass and a rain that didn't come. You come out the back door and he is there, in the grey t-shirt and jeans and that old baseball cap, down on one knee at the sagging porch step with a screwdriver in his fist, fixing the board you told him a month ago you would fix yourself.

He doesn't look up.

He backs out the last screw and sets the rotted board on the grass beside his knee, then taps the new one into place with the heel of his palm, measuring it by eye the way he's been measuring everything since she left. The cap shadows half his face; what is left of the light catches the grey in his beard and the line of his jaw.

He looks up at you then, and it is the first time in weeks he has held your eyes longer than it takes to pass the salt.

The cicadas start up in the trees at the edge of the yard, loud, filling the silence he won't. He holds the screwdriver out, handle first, like a dare, or like a door.