This isn't weird.

Closer Look

Arthur's house looked exactly as it had the very first time Ben had seen it, its white door and patio furniture as pristine as the day they were painted, the lawn just as tastefully landscaped, flawless and tidy right down to the last blade of grass. The scene was one picket fence and a housewife short of being the perfect apotheosis of suburban domesticity. Warm and welcoming as ever, Arthur greeted him at the door.

"It's so good to see you, Ben," he said with a smile. "Come on in. Make yourself comfortable, I'll make some tea."

Ben followed him back to the den and took a seat on the couch. Scanning the room, he found every detail exactly the same as he remembered it—except for one. Another photo frame had appeared on the wall near the mantle. He waited until Arthur was out of the room before standing up to have a closer look.

It was Millie. She was barefoot in a daisy print sundress, lounging on the grass next to an ornate little pond. Though still fair by any standard, her skin was tanned to a warm, peachy shade, her cheeks and shoulders effused with the sanguine blush of a not-quite-healed sunburn. The freckles smattered over her nose were more prominent; he wouldn't have expected to be able to see them in a photo from this distance. It was a candid pose, her body twisted at the waist to look back at the camera, and she was smiling, but it wasn't her real smile.

Ben recognized the expression immediately. It was the one she wore when someone had just interrupted her and she was trying very hard to politely conceal her irritation. He'd seen that face countless times before—never directed at himself, but at every poor fool who had ever interrupted their conversations to ask for her number... and once or twice, at Genevieve.

He liked that face. It reminded him of how eager she had once been to give her undivided attention to him and only him, and the beleaguered way she would exhale and roll her eyes as soon as they were alone again.

"It's nice to see her smiling, isn't it?"

Ben turned to see Arthur in the doorway. He stepped back, feeling as if he'd been caught somewhere he didn't belong. "Oh, uh—yeah," he mumbled. Did Arthur believe she was actually happy in that photo? "Her hair is so long... This must be pretty recent, huh?"

"Good eye." Arthur placed a tray with two teacups down on the table before walking over to stand next to Ben. He studied the photo fondly, a distinct gleam of pride in his eyes. "I took it the Sunday before last."

"She's thin," Ben observed. Really thin—it made his stomach knot. Her wrists looked like fragile twigs that could be snapped by an errant breeze. "Has she been sick?"

"Not sick, really," Arthur replied, "but it's taken her a bit of time to acclimate to the heat. Temperatures have been in the triple digits down there."

"Yeah... she won't eat for anything when she's too hot," Ben said absently, then winced with an odd sense of embarrassment for having so casually mentioned such an intimate little detail. He turned away and moved back to his place on the couch. 

Arthur joined him on the seat opposite. "So, tell me about things, Ben," he said, picking up his tea and blowing on its steaming surface. "I'm eager to hear about how you've been doing since the treatment. Last time we spoke, you said you were seeing a lot of improvement."

"Things have been good." It pained Ben to let the subject change—he had so many questions about Millie. They would just have to wait a little bit longer. He picked up his own mug and took a sip. Chamomile, mint, and honey. Still delicious. "Really good, actually. I've been working a lot."

"Oh, and what are you doing these days?"

Ben tried to move through the catching up part of the conversation quickly, but Arthur, with his patient smile and thoughtful follow-up questions, had a way of getting him to open up about himself before he even realized he was doing it. Soon, he was describing at some length the details of his surprising new life—his busy social life, the gratification of learning woodworking, the serendipitous way his pre-existing skills had aligned with the business's needs.