Page 59 of Into the Fire

I went through my usual routine: bathroom, jeans, yesterday’s flannel off the chair, coffee. The coffeemaker gurgled, and the light from the kitchen window changed from gray to warmer amber while I emptied the drying rack and listened to the shower start down the hall.

Dante entered the kitchen barefoot with his hair pointing in three different directions, wearing a Glacier National Park T-shirt. I poured a second mug and set it on the counter.

He walked past it.

“That’s coffee,” I said.

“It’s black. That’s punishment.” He opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it.

He went still.

Caramel creamer, the brand from his travel mug, sat on the second shelf. It turned coffee the color of rental-apartment beige.

He took it out and looked at it. Then he looked at me over the refrigerator door.

“You bought this.”

“I figured you’d keep drinking it.”

He took the mug I’d poured and doctored it. He wasn’t conservative about the amount. The spoon rang against the ceramic.

He took the first swallow with his eyes on me.

“Better?” I asked.

“I feel cared for and judged at the same time.”

“As you should.”

I finished my coffee and set my mug in the kitchen sink. The bathroom door stood open. Dante was brushing his teeth with a gentle electric buzz. It lived on the counter with a charger attached.

His deodorant sat on the shelf below the mirror. There was a paperback on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

In the bedroom, I took a clean shirt out of the closet, and two hangers down from it was Dante’s gray flannel. I’d washed and dried it with the rest of my laundry.

Dante joined me and pulled his phone off the charger by the bed.

His charger was white. Every cord I owned was black and labeled.

“You’ve been leaving equipment,” I said.

“Should I fill out a manifest?”

I returned to the kitchen and scrambled eggs while Dante leaned against the counter and drank his coffee milkshake. We ate standing up because time was running short.

“You want to know where the coffee atrocity comes from?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

He tipped the mug at me. “Wyoming. I was hauling posts for an outfit near Sheridan, and in February, the only thing open at four-thirty in the morning is the Sinclair station. The coffee was horrible, and the creamer made it bearable.”

“You built fences in February.”

“Yes, I drove posts in February. If we did it in June, that meant Dennis would test it.”

I waited. There had to be more.

“We called him the Bull.” He set his plate down so that his hands were free. “Giant bastard, six-and-a-half feet and three hundred pounds. The first morning I’m on that line, he walked over from wherever supervisors spend their time and stood four feet off my elbow.”