Page 41 of Make Room for Love
“Hey, Mira.”Mira looked up. Isabel had emerged from her room, wearing her weekend clothes: a soft, faded flannel shirt and jeans with a few smears of white paint. “Do you have time to help me with something? Doesn’t have to be now.”
Mira set her laptop aside on the couch. “Of course. Now is fine.”
This was how it was going to be: an ordinary Saturday morning. A few days ago, she’d sat with Isabel at their kitchen table as Isabel had poured out an extraordinary account of her sister—and of her own life, too, as a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a partner, someone who loved and grieved deeply. They hadn’t talked about it since, but Mira hadn’t stopped thinking about it. Isabel was so much more than a pillar standing alone.
Isabel had returned to her usual laconic ways. She’d made dinner for Mira last night, and they had chatted about their days and laughed and shared stretches of easy silence. But Mira would never forget the way Isabel had wept for hours, her strong frame shaking as Mira stroked her back.
And then there had been Isabel’s confession before that. Her mysterious, unspecifiedfeelings. They certainly hadn’t talkedabout that again. But Mira had not, for a single second, stopped thinking about that either.
“I’m free all day,” Isabel said. “If you’re busy…”
“Please give me something to do other than edit my thesis chapter.” Mira had spent the last ten minutes adding, deleting, and re-adding two words. She stood up and stretched, and winced as her back creaked. “What do you need help with?”
“I need to hang those shelves, and it’s easier with two people.” Isabel nodded toward the shelves propped up in the corner that had appeared yesterday. “Shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”
“I’ll try my best, but I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.” It was strangely easy to talk to Isabel the way she always had, all while this new knowledge lived between them.
“You’ll be fine. One second.”
Isabel went to the closet and returned with her toolbox. “I never got around to this. But now that we’re sticking around…” She shrugged. “It’s a two-person job. One of us holds the shelf and makes sure it’s level, while the other person marks where it goes and where the brackets go. The shelves are going up over there.” She pointed to a stretch of empty wall opposite the couch. Mira nodded.
Isabel rolled up her sleeves, exposing her thick forearms. Mira was lit by a spark of excitement. She’d finally get a glimpse of Isabel working, wielding all that competence and strength. She knew now, more than ever, that Isabel’s toughness hadn’t come easily, and it hadn’t diminished Isabel at all in her eyes.
What could someone like Isabel see inher? What was it that Isabel wanted and wasn’t asking for? Maybe for Isabel, none of this amounted to much—she’d just had a passing thought she’d felt duty-bound to disclose. Even the idea of that gave Mira butterflies. If Isabel had ever looked at her likethat, even for a moment…
Her thoughts had wandered. There was no reason to keep dwelling on this.
Isabel took a small device from her toolbox and swept it over the wall. It stuck to a particular spot. “What’s that?” Mira asked.
“It’s a magnetic stud finder. We’re going to drill into the wooden studs in the wall—that’s what the drywall is attached to—so that they’ll hold up the weight of the shelves.” All this was probably painfully obvious to Isabel, but she didn’t seem impatient. She took a pencil from her pocket and marked the location of the stud finder on the wall, and then did it again for another stud with the ease of long experience. Some woman was going to be fortunate, someday, having Isabel put up all her shelves. Isabel said, “Can you get one of those and hold it up? We’ll do these top to bottom.”
Mira grabbed one of the shelves propped against the wall. It was more awkward to balance than she’d expected. Mira wasn’t weak, exactly, but a lifetime of living inside her head had made her uncoordinated. She held it horizontally at eye level. “How high should it be?”
“Depends. How high do you want to reach once the shelves are up?”
It was nice of Isabel to accommodate the shorter people in her life. “This is fine.”
Isabel set a level on top of the shelf, and it was obvious, after a second, that Mira needed to tilt the shelf to center the bubble. It was satisfying to do something physical, as basic as it was, after typing and deleting words all morning.
“That’s good,” Isabel said. “Keep it there. Now watch me.”
Isabel came closer. She marked one end of the shelf, lined up the bracket in the right place, and marked the holes with her pencil, making running commentary. Then she did the same on the other side. Mira took in Isabel’s silver earring, the delicatewisps of hair around her ear, the dusting of dark speckles on her cheek from working in the sun.
“Thanks,” Isabel said. Mira had gotten distracted again. She might have missed a step while she was at it. “You can mark the brackets for the next one.”
Apart from Mira’s failure to stay on task, it was nice to work on something together. No matter how inexperienced she was, Isabel took for granted that Mira was capable of helping out. Isabel held the next shelf in place far more effortlessly than Mira had, and Mira hesitantly placed the bracket. “That’s good,” Isabel said. “Oh, wait. You can get my pencil from my back pocket.”
Mira flushed. Hopefully Isabel didn’t see it. She reached at an awkward angle and plucked the pencil sticking out of Isabel’s pocket, holding her breath as her hand shook slightly, trying to not think about the curve of Isabel’s backside or how tight her jeans were when she was bent at the waist. Trying to not touch anything.
Isabel stiffened as though she’d realized what she’d asked Mira to do. Then the moment passed. Mira concentrated on making her pencil marks. Not on Isabel holding the shelf against the wall with those sturdy forearms.
They dealt with the last shelf quickly. Mira was getting the hang of this. Thank goodness she had something to focus on besides her own thoughts. Then Isabel crouched next to her toolbox. “Come here.”
Mira crouched down next to her, their thighs nearly touching, and watched Isabel put the drill bit into the drill. “Is this what it’s like to be your apprentice?” Mira asked.
“You’re a faster learner than most of them.” They shared a smile and stood back up. Isabel drilled the first few pilot holes with unhurried ease. It was thrilling to watch her work withthose big, confident hands, all her experience distilled into a few quick motions.
“Your turn,” she said.