On October 12, Mara put her bag on the table with my checkbook still inside it. She sat with the bag open and looked at the zipper. I had asked that morning whether we could settle the arrangement. The loss had long since been added up; temporary had become a word we both walked around.
"I can't keep doing this," she said.
I thought she meant arguing. Then she took out a folded pay record and smoothed it beside her bag. She did not offer it for inspection, and I did not reach for it. "I've missed shifts. Changed shifts. Come over when I should have been taking extra hours. I keep checking the time and wondering whether I ought to call you."
"I didn't ask you to miss work."
"No. But I did. And it's costing me."
My first impulse was to defend myself against an invoice she had not presented. I swallowed it. She was telling me something about her life, not yet asking me to reimburse it. I asked what she needed to stop doing. Her answer came quickly enough that she must have carried it a while.
"Checking every evening. Thinking I have to approve every expense. Being afraid that if I don't, whatever happens is my fault."
"It isn't yours."
"It hasn't felt that way."
She took out the checkbook then. We opened it together and reviewed the record rather than arguing from memory. There was no new secret payment waiting to be discovered. We noted the return beneath the earlier agreement on the stub, and she put the pen in my hand. I wrote that possession had returned to me by mutual agreement and dated it.
For a moment I simply held the book. It was not a certificate of wisdom. It contained ordinary checks, a dwindling balance, and the ability to make another mistake. It was mine nonetheless. I put it beside my chair rather than back between us.
"I have a proposal for the roof," I said. "Not a demand."
I brought out the $2,400 written estimate and Della's $1,600 offer. Mara knew the machine might be sold, but seeing the offer made her face change. "You still use it," she said.
"Sometimes. Selling would mean no more large commissions at home. I know that."
I set another sheet beside the two papers. I proposed completing $400 in savings by December, using money from my own income after necessary expenses. With the sale, that would leave $400. I asked whether she wanted to consider contributing that amount, with no access to my account and no agreement that I would move.
"And if I say no?"
"Then I haven't got a complete plan. We look again. I don't write your answer in for you."
She leaned back. "What if the repair costs more?"
"Then I need to clarify the written scope before booking it. You aren't promising an open account."
We spent the next part of the evening examining the figures. I showed her what I believed I could save, and she questioned an allowance that was too small. I had been treating winter groceries as though I ate less when the roof needed money. We corrected that and found another expense I could postpone without pretending it did not exist.
The proposal remained difficult. Selling the machine meant surrendering earning capacity as well as equipment. Keeping it meant having an asset upstairs while water threatened the rooms below. Mara asked whether I would blame her if I regretted the sale. I told her regret would not make her the purchaser or the person who chose.
"I might still be sorry," I said. "That doesn't mean somebody made me."
She folded her pay record and put it away. She wanted to examine her own expenses before promising $400. I told her to do that. We agreed not to sign anything that night or turn the conversation into a contract because we were tired of having it.
Before leaving, she asked whether I wanted her to keep a list of upcoming bills. I said I would make it, and ask if I wanted help checking. She nodded, disappointed or relieved; I could not tell. When I opened my checkbook afterward, the first thing I entered was an ordinary household payment. Authority had returned in the least impressive form possible: a sum I had to subtract correctly.