Agnes's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Three days after the bakery visit, Agnes packed two gifts into the back seat of Tom's car. A tea set for Melissa. A tackle box for Allan. Tom looked at the boxes and said nothing for a mile. "You're bringing him a present," Tom said. "I'm bringing him somewhere else to put his hands," Agnes said. "A man who only has one thing will break that thing. And her with it." Tom kept driving. "You think a box of hooks fixes a temper." "I think it gives him a river to go stand in when the bread burns." They parked at the bakery. Through the window Agnes saw Allan at the back counter, shoulders up around his ears, staring down at a tray. Melissa was wiping the same spot on the glass she had already wiped clean. Agnes had seen her own mother do that. It was the motion of a woman waiting for weather to pass. The bell rang. Melissa's face lifted, then tightened when she saw the boxes. "Mom. What is this." "A tea set," Agnes said. She placed it on the counter. Pink roses on white china. "For when you sit down. You do sit down, some days." Melissa touched the lid of the teapot with one finger. Her eyes went wet fast and she blinked it back. Allan came out from the back, hands white with flour. He looked at the second box. Then at Agnes. "I don't fish," he said. "I know," Agnes said. "That's the point. You need a place that isn't this one." He went still. Agnes had watched him go still before, over a ruined loaf. This was the same stillness. She held it. "You think I'm hard on her," he said. "I think you're hard on yourself and she stands closest." Allan looked at Melissa. Melissa did not look away. She did not lie for him. That was the new thing. He opened the tackle box. Lures in neat rows. He touched one. His thumb stayed on it a long moment. "My father fished," he said. Quiet. "I forgot that." "Then remember it Sunday," Agnes said. "Every Sunday. Out of this kitchen. Away from her." "Mom," Melissa said. "Let her," Allan said. He closed the box. He did not thank Agnes. He carried the tackle box to the back and set it on a shelf where he would see it every morning. Melissa walked Agnes to the door. On the step she took Agnes's wrist. Not tight. Just held. "He'll go," Melissa said. "He'll actually go. He listens to you." "He listens to anyone who doesn't flinch," Agnes said. In the car, Tom started the engine. "You bought her Sundays," he said. "I bought her one Sunday," Agnes said. "We'll see if it holds." She looked at her hands in her lap. The stone was gone. Something smaller sat there now. A held breath. A man walking toward a river instead of a tray.