Duncan left at ten o'clock on the dot, which was the only way Duncan did anything. Jake stood in the drive of the caretaker's cottage and watched the blue Grenadier until it disappeared through the estate gates and the sound of the engine faded into the particular quiet of a Saturday morning with nowhere to be.
He stood there for another minute after that.
Then he went inside and called Ryan.
Ryan picked up on the third ring, the background noise of an infant and a television audible behind him. Jake kept it brief — the photo shoot, the river spot, Toph Islip, the fishing rods, their mother's birthday. Ryan listened without interrupting, which was how Ryan did everything, and when Jake finished said that's a good idea in the tone of someone who had already decided it was a good idea before Jake finished explaining it.
"I'll make it work," Ryan said. "Text me the dates."
Jake called Sean next. Sean picked up immediately and talked for four minutes before Jake got to say anything, something about a new tap line at the brewery and a band that had cancelled their Thursday slot, and when Jake finally got a word in and explained the photo shoot Sean said obviously yes and does this photographer know what he's doing and I'll wear the grey shirt and does Mom know yet all in approximately one breath.
"No," Jake said. "It's a surprise."
"Oh she's going to cry," Sean said with satisfaction. "She's absolutely going to cry."
Jake called Zach last. Zach picked up and said nothing, which meant he was listening.
Jake explained the photo shoot.
"Cool," Zach said. "When?"
"Working on it."
"Cool," Zach said again, and hung up.
Jake cleaned the caretaker's cottage from top to bottom.
Not because it was dirty. It wasn't dirty. Duncan was many things and one of them was someone who didn't leave a space dirty. But Jake needed something to do with his hands that wasn't thinking, and cleaning was something his hands knew how to do without asking his brain for permission.
He started with the kitchen — the counters, the stovetop, inside the refrigerator, the floor on his hands and knees with a brush. He moved to the bathroom, then the bedroom, stripping the bed and remaking it with clean sheets that smelled of nothing, which was both better and worse than the alternative. He vacuumed the front room rug. He dusted the bureau where the sequined bear sat watching with its usual impartial dignity.
He was on his hands and knees scrubbing the front room baseboard when he heard the knock.
Zach stood on the front step with his backpack and his phone and the particular expression of someone who had decided to show up and wasn't going to explain why.
"Hey," Jake said.
"Hey," Zach said. He looked past Jake at the cleaning supplies arranged on the floor. "You're cleaning."
"Yep."
"Okay." Zach came in, dropped his backpack, picked up the second brush without being asked, and got on his hands and knees beside Jake.
They cleaned the baseboards in companionable silence, Zach occasionally showing Jake something on his phone — a meme, a video, nothing important — and Jake looking at it and handing the phone back. After an hour they sat on the front room rug, backs against the sofa, the caretaker's cottage smelling of cleaning products and lemon and nothing else.
"You okay?" Zach asked.
"Yeah," Jake said.
Zach nodded. Went back to his phone. Stayed another two hours.
Sunday morning arrived grey and quiet. Jake was sitting at the kitchen table with coffee and his Civil Engineering notes when he heard the knock — a particular knock, three precise taps, the kind of knock that had been developed over years of not wanting to startle the help.
Eleanor Smythe stood on the front step in a cashmere cardigan and silk trousers, a picnic basket over one arm that was large enough to suggest she had packed for several people and was bringing it to one.
"I wanted to make sure you eat something," she said, moving past him into the kitchen with the ease of someone who owned the property. "I remember what it's like to be in love and separated for the first time."
She set the basket on the kitchen table, opened it, and began unpacking with efficient elegance — pastries from somewhere that didn't sell pastries to just anyone, fresh fruit arranged in a way that suggested it had been arranged rather than just washed, a bottle of champagne that was not for mixing with orange juice.
"It's nine in the morning," Jake said.
"It's nearly half past," Ellie said, and handed him a glass.
They sat at the kitchen table for two hours. Ellie poured champagne and talked about Duncan as a small boy with the particular relish of a mother who had been waiting for the right audience. Duncan at four, conducting what he called meetings with his stuffed animals and taking minutes in a notebook he couldn't yet write in. Duncan at six, deciding he was going to learn to sail and teaching himself from a library book before anyone knew he was interested. Duncan at eight, informing his kindergarten teacher — a year late, but Duncan had reconsidered — that her classroom management system was inefficient and presenting an alternative.
Jake laughed until his chest hurt.
"He was a handful," Ellie said, with the satisfied tone of someone who had found a handful to be exactly what she wanted.
She refilled his glass. Looked at the pastry in her hand with a thoughtful expression.
"He told me at lunch the other day," she said. "About school. About what he was like with you." She paused. "I never knew. Had he known—" She stopped. Set the pastry down. Picked up her champagne.
Jake said nothing. There was nothing to say that the silence wasn't already saying better.
Ellie looked at him with the particular expression she got when she was done with a subject and had decided what she thought about it. Then she picked up the pastry again, took a bite, and asked Jake what he was studying at State.
Jake told her. She listened with genuine interest and asked three precise questions that revealed she understood Civil Engineering considerably better than he'd expected.
Of course she did. She was Eleanor Smythe.
The week settled into its shape.
Classes, which were the easiest part — the lab with Charlotte, the legal pad, the mathematics prerequisite full of freshmen, the particular rhythm of a schedule that asked nothing of him except to show up and pay attention. Jake showed up and paid attention.
Homework in the evenings at the kitchen table, the caretaker's cottage quiet around him, the sequined bear watching from the bureau.
The morning texts to Duncan, which Duncan always answered within minutes regardless of what time it was, which told Jake something about how Duncan was sleeping.
Good morning Sir. 8-9 lecture, 9-11 lab, 11-1 free, 1-3 lecture, free after 3. Sent at 7:15am.
Good morning boy. Dress warm today, it's going to be cold. From Duncan at seven sixteen, three hours away, watching the same weather system from a different window.
Wednesday night Duncan called, his face on the facetime screen looking tired in a way the Alderton version of Duncan apparently allowed himself to look when it was just Jake.
"I didn't get into the seminar," Duncan said.
"Which one?"
"The one I wanted." He said it with the flat precision of someone who had finished being angry about it and arrived at something colder. "Contemporary Ethics in Architecture. Twelve students. I was thirteenth on the waitlist."
"I'm sorry," Jake said.
"It's fine," Duncan said, in the tone that meant it was not fine and was not going to be fine for some time but had been filed away in the place where Duncan put things he couldn't control. "How's the lab?"
Jake told him about the lab. Duncan listened, asked questions, made one observation about load bearing calculations that Jake wrote down and used in his notes the following morning.
I miss you from Jake before he put the phone down.
I know. I miss you too. Sleep well boy. From Duncan, three hours away.
Tuesday night Zach arrived with two large pizzas and no explanation, set them on the kitchen table, and sat down. They ate pizza and watched something on Jake's laptop that neither of them would have been able to describe afterward and Zach fell asleep on the sofa and Jake put a blanket over him and went to bed.
Thursday Mrs. Samuels arrived with Zach and a pot of something that had been cooking since morning, the smell of it filling the caretaker's cottage the moment she walked through the door. She moved through the kitchen with the practiced efficiency of a woman who had been feeding people in small spaces her entire life, finding everything she needed without asking where it was.
She noticed the pillory the way everyone noticed the pillory — a brief pause, a look at Jake, a look back at the piece of furniture in question.
"Duncan built it," Jake said. "Not sure why. But it's an amazing piece of craftsmanship."
Mrs. Samuels looked at it for one more moment with the careful eye of a woman who had not just fallen off a truck, and had four sons, and understood that there were things a mother didn't need to know.
"It is well made," she agreed, and went back to the kitchen.
They ate at the kitchen table, the three of them — Mrs. Samuels and Jake and Zach and the particular warmth of a family meal in a space that had been quiet all week. Mrs. Samuels asked about classes and Jake told her, and she asked about the photo shoot and Jake told her Toph Islip's name and she said she'd heard of him, which meant the portrait was going to be good. Zach ate two helpings and said little and looked around the caretaker's cottage with the assessing eye of someone calculating how much time he intended to spend here going forward.
After dinner Mrs. Samuels stood at the sink washing up, which Jake tried to prevent and failed, and looked out the window at the estate in the early evening light.
"He's good to you," she said. Not a question.
"Yes," Jake said.
She nodded, satisfied, and handed him a dish to dry.
Friday night Duncan facetimed from his desk, his Alderton room visible behind him — books stacked with typical precision, a lamp casting warm light, the particular organized density of Duncan inhabiting a space and immediately making it his.
"One week," Duncan said.
"One week," Jake agreed.
"Seven more days and you can come to Alderton or I'll come home. We'll decide Thursday."
"Okay," Jake said.
Duncan looked at him through the screen for a long moment. "You're doing well," he said. "I can see it."
Jake said nothing. The compliment sat in his chest the way Cal's you did good today had sat — quiet and certain and not requiring any response.
"Good night boy," Duncan said.
"Good night Sir," Jake said.
The screen went dark. The caretaker's cottage settled around Jake in the particular quiet of a Friday night at the end of a first week apart. The sequined bear watched from the bureau. Outside the estate was dark and still.
Jake washed his coffee cup, put it in the drying rack, turned off the kitchen light, and went to bed.
