Page 152 of Across His Line

Rafe’s dipping it in his soup, so I follow. I dip the bread and eat it.

“This is so good,” I mutter between bites. “Thank you.”

His mother smiles at me.

Rafe’s watching me in the corner of his eye, and I know he knows. He knows that I’ve never eaten anything like this in my life. I don’t think a grilled cheese dipped in a can of tomato soup is equivalent.

I dip it again and watch him as I eat it. He pretends not to notice.

It’s after ten, and I can’t settle. The house has gone silent. Rafe’s parents went to bed an hour ago, down a long hall on the other side of the stairs. I’m in the guest room with the too-many pillows and the dried flowers and the thermostat that runs warm, sitting cross-legged on top of the comforter, because I can’t make myself get under it yet.

I keep looking at the room. Not the way I looked at it this afternoon, with my duffel on my shoulder, trying not to touch anything. I see it differently now. The crown molding. The two windows with the real wood frames. The marble in the bathroom, the towels rolled in a basket, and the soap that smells like cedar.

I used to look at rooms like this and add up what they cost. I couldn’t help it. Every room I’ve ever been in, I’ve priced it. The couch. The rug. The lamp. That’s just how my brain works.

But I already did that the first time I came here. Now I’m thinking about what it means. Not what it costs. What it lets you do. A room with a door that locks and nobody who needs to get through it. A refrigerator that’s full every time you open it without anybody having to think about it. A car that works in the driveway. The heat that is always running.

It isn’t about the material items. I don’t want the stuff. I don’t care about that.

I want the not having to think about it.

I get up and get my notebook out of my backpack. One of the black ones. I sit back down on the bed and open it to a clean page, and I sit there with the pen in my hand for a long time, not writing anything.

Then I write one word at the top.

Cap.

I look at it. I circle it.

Under it, I start to list.

Source. That’s the Goodwill, the Route 9 bus, the church sales, two or three hours every week, more in the fall. Clean. Wash, steam, lint-roll, sometimes stitch. Photograph. The ring light, the bedsheet backdrop, the window at three in the afternoon when the light is good. List. Write it up, measurements, flaws, keywords, price it off the sold ones. Answer messages. People asking if I’ll take twenty for a forty-dollar thing at midnight. Pack. Tissue, mailer, tape. Ship. The post office on Main, every afternoon, ten minutes, a mile there and a mile back. Store. The trash bag in my closet. The drawer. The box under my bed.

I look at the list.

Every single line has me in it. Every dollar I’ve ever made from this, every one came through my two hands. I found it, I cleaned it, I took its picture, I folded it into a mailer and taped it shut and carried it a mile in the snow.

If I want to make twice as much, I have to find twice as much. Clean twice as much. Carry twice as much to the post office. Store twice as much in a dorm room.

And there’s only one of me.

There are only so many hours.

I write it under the list.

TIME = CAP.

Then, under that:

SPACE = CAP.

INVENTORY = CAP.

ME = CAP.

I look at that last one for a long time.

I didn’t build a business. I built a job. A good one. One I’m proud of. It taught me everything I know about anything. But it’s a job. It pays me for every hour I give it, and not one hour more, and when I run out of hours, it stops.