The Answer I Could Give

Miller came to the bakery before the afternoon rain let up. I knew it was him by the slow tread on the front step and the way the bell gave one low shake instead of its usual bright ring. Clara was at the counter, sorting a tray of cooled rolls by touch. I had been tying paper around them, a job I could do sitting down with my splinted ankle on a stool.

“Can we talk in the back?” Miller asked.

My hands stopped on the string. Clara’s ears turned toward him. She didn’t ask what it was about. She only set the tray down and said, “I’ll be right here.”

The room behind the kitchen smelled of yeast and damp wool. Miller stood by the door, leaving the path to it clear. His fur was wet at the shoulders.

“The traveler’s in town,” he said. “He’s at my office. He asked for you.”

The string slipped from my fingers. I stared at it on the table, a loose white line between my hands.

“Did you bring him here?”

“No.” Miller’s voice was firm. “He came to me. He hasn’t been near the bakery.”

I tried to fit that into the promise he’d made. He’d tell me if the man came closer. Now the man had come close enough to ask for me, and Miller was telling me. I knew that was what I’d asked for. My body didn’t care. My foot pressed against the stool rung until the splint pinched.

“What does he want?”

“To speak with you. I haven’t agreed to anything. You decide what happens next.”

I looked toward the doorway. Clara was out there, moving a cup from one side of the counter to the other. She could hear us. She didn’t come in to fill the silence or tell me what I should want.

“I don’t want to see him.” It came out quietly, but I didn’t take it back. “I don’t want him coming here.”

“Understood.”

“Can you tell him I’m not going back?”

“I can.” Miller waited. “Do you want me to tell him you’re safe?”

The question made my throat tighten. Safe was a word people used when they wanted you to stop asking what came next. But Miller didn’t sound like he was asking me to believe anything. He was asking what I wanted him to say.

“Yes,” I said. “Tell him I’m safe here. And that I won’t go with him.”

Miller nodded once. “Anything else?”

I wanted to say that I wasn’t anybody’s to return. I wanted the words to be bigger than my mouth could manage. My fingers curled against the table instead.

“Tell him I said no.”