Story code: ST-000974
Part 2: The Tag He Pointed At
The next morning I made coffee on the folding table and stood in my unfinished kitchen looking at the permit tag Derek had waved at like it proved he was holding my whole life together. In front of everyone the night before, he had acted like my trying to release him was some kind of attack. What stayed with me was not the yelling. It was the fact that he had panicked at the exact moment I offered to take the burden off him, and the yellow tag he kept pointing to was still hanging there like it had something to say that his speech did not. I climbed onto the step stool I used for reaching the one upper shelf still left in the pantry nook and pulled the tag closer. It was clipped inside the sink base on a bent metal ring. The paper was stiff with sawdust on the edges. There was a permit number, my address, the description line, and inspection boxes with dates stamped in neat dark ink. I read every line twice because construction paperwork was never my world. But dates are dates, and words are words. The permit had not been pulled when Derek first told everybody he was already rearranging his business for me. The first inspection date was later than the weekend he told Marlene he had spent “living in Hannah’s disaster.” There were long gaps in the boxes. One line showed a correction notice. Another line was blank where I expected a sign-off. I did not suddenly become an expert standing there in socks on dusty subfloor. I just knew the tag did not match the heroic timeline Derek repeated every chance he got. Luis came by around noon to return a cooler he had left after dinner. He stepped through the back door, saw me crouched by the sink base, and set the cooler down without asking why I was reading the permit. “You ever look at this?” I asked. He bent at the waist and read without touching it. That was his way. He looked first and talked after. “When was rough plumbing actually signed?” I pointed to the stamped box. He frowned at the line, not dramatically, just enough to crease one side of his forehead. “Then cabinets could not have been set when he said they were set. Not if this is the same permit.” “That is what I thought. Or maybe I am reading it wrong.” “Maybe,” he said. Then he tapped the air near the correction notice without touching the paper. “What is that for?” I read the short typed note out loud. It was basic language, but the point landed anyway. Something had needed to be corrected before work could continue. Luis straightened and looked around the kitchen the way he had the night before, taking in the exposed toe kicks, the missing appliances, the temporary table. “He talks like he kept this thing moving nonstop.” I leaned back on my heels. “That is his whole speech.” Luis did not answer right away. He picked up the coffee mug I had left near the sink base, moved it away from the cabinet opening, and said, “You should ask him simple questions and let him answer in front of the tag.” That evening Derek came in through the back door without knocking, like he still had full run of the house. He was on his phone when he walked into the kitchen, then tucked it into his pocket when he saw Luis at the table and me standing by the sink cabinet. “What now,” he said. I kept my voice even. “Can you explain the dates on the permit?” He gave me a stare like I had insulted him by learning how to read. “What about them?” “You said you were already deep into this before you even had time to take other jobs. The tag says the permit came later. And there is a correction notice. And there is no final on this stage.” He started talking immediately, too fast to be careful. He said permits always lag. He said paperwork means nothing compared to real work. He said he had done plenty before the city caught up. Then he swung back to his favorite lane and started listing what he had given up for me again, except now the list came out tangled. First he said he had crews lined up and waiting. Then he said he had never wanted extra people in my house because I was “too stressed.” Then he said he was protecting me from bad subcontractors. Then he said he had been here constantly. Luis asked one blunt question from the folding chair. “If you were here constantly, why was there a correction stop in the middle?” Derek turned to him so sharply his tool bag brushed the cabinet corner. “You do not know what you are looking at.” “Maybe not,” Luis said. “That is why I am asking.” Marlene came in halfway through, carrying a pie dish and then stopping in the doorway when nobody answered her hello. She looked from Derek to me to the open sink base. Derek spoke before I could. “This is what she does. She digs around for technicalities after I save her from a complete mess.” I did not raise my voice. “I offered to let you walk away. You got angry. I asked for a schedule. You gave me a speech. Now I am asking what this tag means, and you are still not answering that.” Marlene set the pie dish down carefully on the folding table. “Hannah, you do not need to interrogate him.” “I am not interrogating him,” I said. “I am standing in my own kitchen asking why the only written timeline in this room does not match what I have been told in front of my whole family.” Derek opened his mouth, closed it, then started over with a different version. He said the permit was.