Free The End of Always: A Novel by Randi Davenport Page A

thumbs against his index fingers but he did not scare me.
    “Work,” I replied. I smiled.
    “Where do you work?” He did not meet my eyes when he spoke but looked past me to the pink sky.
    “William Oliver’s laundry,” I said.
    He made no comment about that but just started off along the fence that stood between us like a line in the land. I followed him on the other side. He looked thin and cold.
    “Are you hungry?” I asked.
    He nodded. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my slice of bread.
    “Here,” I said. “Take it.”
    He ate quietly and carefully. He did not appear to want one crumb to go to waste.
    “Better?” I said.
    He nodded.
    We came to the end of the fence. The world became brighter and colors appeared, the pale yellow siding of the house next door, the red harness on a horse that jingled past pulling a wagon behind, the driver humped over, a green blanket spread across his lap.
    Edwin stared intently at something beyond the trees. Then he turned and strode away without a word. When he got to the porch, he began to walk up and down. He kept his gaze trained on the sky, as if he saw something none of the rest of us could see.
    I waited and waited but when he made no move to return, I went on my way. Houses began to send smoke from their chimneys and the smoke rose white against the sky and the familiar smell of coal fires filled the air. A jay stood blue on a fence post and then flew in a blur into a black tree where snow fell. The wind rose. My hairpins threatened to come undone like threads unraveling.
    I heard him before I saw him, his footsteps pounding in the dirt, and then he fell in step beside me. He swung his arms and looked at me through the hair that fell over his eyes and every so often stared at the sky, where he would scan the horizon for unknown things.
    The sky just looked like the sky to me, the clear blue you sometimes get after a snowfall, the morning sharply drawn under all of that glistening light, the whole of the country coming awake at the same time.
    We passed the place where they sold ice cream in the summer. Its blank windows rattled in the wind. Just on the other side, Edwin stopped and put his hand on my arm.
    “There is a war,” he said urgently. “I am the angel. I am the light.”
    I stopped. “Edwin,” I said.
    He looked down at me.
    “What do you mean?” I said. “I do not understand.”
    His expression flattened and he bent down and looked me in the eye. His lips moved and he stared at me for a moment. “You are in danger,” he said. Then he dropped his hand to his side and turned away and made his way back up the street, his shadow thin on the snow.
    I tucked my chin into my coat collar and pushed my hands deeper into my pockets. A wagon came around the corner and I stepped out of the way. The horse dropped steaming horse apples into the road while the driver clucked to him as they passed.
      
    By the time I got to the laundry, William Oliver’s man had the fires lit and three kettles simmered on the stoves. I hung my coat on its hook. Then I took up the first duffle and unbound its cord and pulled the sheets into my basket and hoisted the basket onto my hip. I climbed the wooden ladder to one of the vats and began wrestling the sheets in one by one, stirring after each addition just the way you stir when you make a cake. William Oliver stood in the doorway and watched me.
    “You are here early,” he said.
    I nodded. I dropped another sheet into the water.
    “I do not pay overtime,” he said.
    I did not reply.
    “Mary,” he said. “Did you hear me?”
    I turned to look at him and I nodded again.
    He sighed. Now he stood in the doorway and watched me stir the wash. I did not like to be caught alone with him. I did not like the feeling of his breath on the back of my neck or the faint brushing of his fingers when he touched my hand. He always pulled his hand back, so I suppose he meant for me to imagine that his touch was inadvertent, an