Page 8 of The Man in the Cottage

"A woman who finds out her husband is a serial killer." I lean against the counter, arms crossed. "It's not going well."

"What's the problem?"

I don't know why I tell him. Maybe because he asked, and no one else has. My friends all think the book is a cute hobby, something I'll abandon once I get bored and go back to a real job. My family thinks I'm having a breakdown. No one has actually asked what the book is about, let alone what's giving me trouble.

"The husband," I say. "I can't figure out how to make him scary without making him obvious. Every time I write him, he's too much of a villain. But real killers don't seem like killers. That's the whole point."

Travis is quiet for a second, processing. Then he says, "Maybe you're thinking about it wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"You're trying to hide what he is. But the scariest thing isn't when someone hides who they are." He's looking at me steadily now, his dark eyes hard to read. "It's when they show you exactly who they are and you don't see it. Because you're not looking. Because you don't want to."

I stare at him.

"The wife," he continues. "She probably sees things. Small things. But she explains them away because the alternative is too hard. That's scarier than a guy who's good at hiding. A guy who doesn't have to hide because no one's really paying attention."

I don't say anything. I can't.

He shrugs, like he didn't just crack open the entire foundation of my book. "Just a thought. I'll be back in an hour with the part."

The door closes behind him, and I'm left standing in my grandmother's kitchen with wet feet and a head full of ideas I didn't have ten minutes ago.

He comes back in forty-five minutes, not an hour, and he fixes the sink without saying much of anything.

I try to stay out of his way, retreating to the living room with my laptop, but I can't focus. I keep thinking about what he said. The wife sees things but explains them away. The husband doesn't have to hide because no one's paying attention.

It's good. It's really good. And I don't know what to do with the fact that the quiet handyman in my grandmother's cottage just solved a problem I've been wrestling with for months.

I hear the water run, then stop. Cabinets opening and closing. Then footsteps, and Travis appears in the doorway of the living room, wiping his hands on a rag.

"All done," he says. "Shouldn't give you any more trouble."

"What do I owe you?"

"Nothing."

"Travis—"

"The part was eighteen dollars. Your grandmother fed me about a thousand dollars worth of pie over the past six months. We're even."

I want to argue, but the look on his face tells me it won't get me anywhere. He's already decided, and he's not the type to change his mind once it's made up.

"Thank you," I say instead. "For fixing it. And for... the other thing. The advice about the book."

He nods, tucking the rag into his back pocket. His eyes drift to the stack of boxes by the fireplace, then back to me.

"You need help unpacking those?"

"No, I—" I stop. Look at the boxes. Look at him. "Actually, yeah. Maybe. If you have time."

"I have time."

He says it simply, like it's nothing. And maybe it is, to him. Maybe helping is just what he does, the way some people make small talk or send thank-you cards. But it doesn't feel like nothing to me.

We spend the next two hours unpacking. He doesn't talk much, which I'm starting to realize is just how he is, but it's not an uncomfortable silence. He lifts the heavy boxes without being asked, breaks them down flat when they're empty, stacks them by the back door to take out to the recycling. I tell him where things go and he puts them there, no questions, no suggestions, no mansplaining about better organizational systems.

At some point I put on music—a playlist I used to listen to in my apartment, Motown and old soul, Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin. He doesn't comment on it, but I catch him nodding along to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" while he's shelving books, and something about that makes me smile.