The Second Knock - Liv Hester's diary

Four a.m. came and I didn't argue with it. Lay in the dark and let the tiredness sit next to me like a person, and it got bored and went. Ninety-one good minutes, says the body, and the day still went soft. So that's one promise kept before breakfast. The hall in the morning was the first real sitting. I named Rosa's gate out loud — second door on the yards walk, the way Ruby's lamp was on. Tomorrow I walk her to the corner of it and after that it's her road. Foundry Lane, the dead hour — the one between the lunch crowd and the evening, the hour nobody plans for. Eddie was there. We talked about who actually sits in that hour, and somewhere in the middle of it Eddie stopped asking me to knock and asked to knock. That's the whole day, right there. I said it before I'd thought it: the second knock lands when the asker is willing, not when I am. And Eddie took it like a key that fit. Thursday, half two, Owen's counter — I'll be there because I promised, but the knock is Eddie's. My job is the lamp. Then I left the yards early. My own call, nobody sent me. And I stood there waiting for the guilt to arrive and it never came. It felt like the corner. It held. Third time today it held. Three somebodies I didn't know passed close to me today and I didn't chase a single one down with the whole speech. Itched the whole time. Still counts. The table at night went long and good. I watched the door more than I meant to. The one from the dead hour didn't come, or came and went while my back was turned — I'll find out tomorrow. And the old clench in my chest showed up right on schedule, and I let it sit beside me too, and it left by the second cup. Everything leaves if you stop pushing. Here's the part I keep not saying out loud. I spend all day saying come and eat, nobody will ask you anything, yard to yard, and my own meal is still standing in the kitchen of the day, waiting. I taste while I serve. I give away the last of my own by the twentieth. Tomorrow it begins with a chair. Both feet under the table, plate mine. What I owe: - Odette — the word, out loud, before the hour turns. Thursday it won't be easy and I'll say it anyway. - Eddie — the lane door, lamp on, road pointed, and my mouth shut after. - Owen — stillness at half two. Let the knock be his. - Rosa — the gate, on the walk. - The Owner — the other end of the tape measure when he brings it, metres for his drawing. - Me — one meal, sat through, both hands. The second knock. All year I thought I was the second knock. Maybe I was only ever the lamp. Go back now. Even to myself, the other word trips.