The Husband Project

“No hurry. I’m gonna go put the pics on Facebook.”

Wonderful. “My mother-in-law will phone me as soon as you do, so tell her I’ll call her back after I defrost the neighbor.”

“Cool.”

She followed the nonrobber into his house, where he made it clear she wasn’t welcome. He sank onto one of the two kitchen chairs and stared at his wet boots. Lucia paused inside the door and kicked her suede boots off. She walked gingerly around the little mounds of snow the stranger had tracked in and turned up the thermostat on the wall next to the refrigerator. “It’s cold in here. You were trying to get a fire going?”

“I wasn’t stealing wood.” He gestured out the window to the shed.

“Of course you were. You just didn’t know,” she said, hoping to comfort him.

“That’s not my shed?”

“Nope.”

He sighed, a deep heartfelt sound that was almost comical.

“I can see where you’d think it was,” she offered cheerfully. “The yards kinda blend. I’m going to build a fire so you have a little more heat in here. Go take a shower. Can you manage that? You need to warm up.”

“I don’t know you. I’m Sam Hove.”

“I’m Lucia Swallow. Your next-door neighbor. Your—”

“The pie lady?”

“Yes.”

“You smell like rum, your kids run wild and your dog attacked me.”

He looked so disappointed. Obviously she was not what he’d expected. If she hadn’t been so amused, her feelings would have been hurt.

“I smell like rum because I was at a bridal shower and there was punch. A really delicious punch.” She didn’t explain that she’d spilled some on herself while washing the punch bowl, or that she’d been too tired to have more than a token sip during the toast to Meg’s marital bliss. “My kids are boys. I try not to let them run wild, but they do...run. And the dog? Is not mine, but he’s not wild, either. I’m dog sitting for the groom.”

“Groom?”

“Who’s marrying the woman whose bridal shower it was, but he’s out of town. Now, go take a shower and I’ll make a fire.” She didn’t say she’d return with some lasagna and garlic bread leftover from last night’s dinner. He looked as though he could use something to eat.

“I can’t,” he said after a long moment.

“Why not?” She was as patient as she’d be with little Tony, who often stared at his feet and said “I can’t” in a pitiful voice.

“I can’t get my boots off.” He smiled, the barest of smiles on his tanned face. Her heart did a tiny—very tiny—flip.

“Ah, those cracked ribs.” She drew a chair up opposite him. “Come on, give me your foot.”

He hesitated, eyeing her as if she might be playing a joke on him.

“I’m a mother,” she said. “I do this kind of thing all the time.”

“Not to me,” he muttered, but raised his leg and rested the heel on her leg. In a matter of seconds she’d untied the snow-drenched knot, released the frozen laces and pulled his new boot off. She did the same for the other boot. “You were going to wear these until your ribs healed?”

“I didn’t think that part through.”

“Obviously.” She held the boots by two fingers. “I’ll put these by the stove so they’ll dry out.”

“You don’t—”

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I thought you’d be a lot older.”

“I feel about ninety.”

“Jerry said you were some kind of professor. Retired. I pictured a frail, fragile elderly gentleman who liked soup and drank Earl Grey tea.”

“I thought pie ladies were old. Great-grandmothers wearing aprons.”

“Then I guess we’re both disappointed,” she assured him.

* * *

DAVEY SWALLOW NEVER meant to kill anyone, but for a few minutes outside in the snow he was awfully afraid he’d done it anyway. He and Matt had taken Boo outside to play in the snow after convincing Kim that their mother wouldn’t mind. Mom didn’t care if they made snowballs and built a snow fort as long as they didn’t leave the yard. Davey knew he was in charge of Matt and Matt knew it, too, though sometimes he griped. Most of the time Matt just followed him around and that was okay.

Sort of.

Except that Matty talked too much. Tony used to be quiet, but lately he’d started talking, too. Except he was only four and didn’t know any different. Davey thought that the world would be better if people didn’t talk so much. There were seven girls and four boys in his third-grade class and the seven girls never shut up. They talked about books and horses and television and video games and their older sisters. They talked about their dogs and their kittens and their favorite colors and when their mothers would let them get a cell phone.

They talked about homework. They talked about each other. They talked about the boys.

One time Davey wore ear plugs, but Mrs. Kramer caught him and made him take them out. She made him stay after school and asked him a lot of questions about whether he was happy or having a hard time or being bullied or having trouble at home.

He’d tried to tell her he liked being quiet. He told her he liked The Quiet, as if it was a place he could escape to: The Quiet, like The Beach. The Desert. The Mountains.

She wrote a note to his mom suggesting he have his ears checked.

When he told his mom about The Quiet, she’d listened very carefully. He liked that about his mom. She listened harder than anyone he knew. He bet his dad liked to talk to her. Sometimes, if he concentrated real hard, he could hear his dad’s voice. When he was in bed at night, he’d pretend he could hear the murmurs of his mom and dad talking. He’d remember his mother laughing a little bit, his father teasing her, the noise of the television or the water splashing in the sink as the dishes were washed.

He liked those sounds.

But now he was stuck with listening to Tony and Matt fight over who had the best Matchbox car while Tony’s favorite television show blared in the background. Kim’s thumbs were flying over her cell phone, which impressed Davey no end. At this rate he’d be twenty before he ever got his own phone.

And who was the man in the snow?

“I didn’t mean to knock him down,” he told Kim. “Boo kinda bumped me and I kinda bumped the man.”

“I know,” Kim assured him. “You’re not exactly the violent type.”

“What type am I?”

She glanced up from her phone and gave him the once-over. “You’re a cute, geeky boy, but geeky in a good way, you know?”