The first time I heard it, I thought I misheard. We had just pulled up to the lake house, and Renata was already waving at her sister across the yard, like we were checking into a resort instead of a place where I could smell the work from the moment I stepped out of the car. “Well, here comes our handyman,” Darek said, grinning. “No way, Wojtek.
Come on, we’ve got a project for you. ”
Renata didn’t even turn around. She just said, “Go on. It’ll take five minutes.
”
I followed Darek to the old shed behind the fence, the one with the brown paint peeling off in big, dry flakes. He pointed at a loose board on the pier, asked me to pull one screw, tap another in at an angle, hold the plank so it wouldn’t split. I crouched down, felt the wood give under my hand, and then everything went sideways. My shoulder snapped back, my head cracked against the hard panel beside the shed, and the sky spun somewhere above me.
Renata said something, but not to me. She said it to the others, over her shoulder, like I was a noise in the background. They drove me to the hospital in Toruń through the side entrance because the ambulance bay was busy. The doctor came in with a tablet, told me I had a fractured collarbone, a bad bruise on my ribs, probably a mild concussion.
Then Renata walked in wearing the same light blouse, purse over her arm, phone in her hand. “So? ” she said. “What do you want me to do about it?
”
I stared at her. I had hoped she would call my sister. I had hoped she would look at me like I was a person. She didn’t stay.
She went back to the lake, back to her family, back to the grill and the talk at the table. On her way out, she packed her cosmetics bag with one hand and waved for me to carry her bag to the car with the other. Later, Ola showed up. She came in with a jacket thrown over her hoodie, hair tied back carelessly, face pale.
She looked at the cast, at my bruised side, at the bandage on my temple, then straight into my eyes. “So? How was it? ” she asked.
“She was there,” I said. “Yeah,” Ola said. “She was. ”
The words hit me after she left.
Ola told me she had gone to the shed, to the pier, to those planks I had stared at from the ground with pain in my whole body. She had mud on her shoes and wet hair stuck to her temples and a face so tired it looked like she had carried something heavy for hours. Darek had gone back under the pier after the ambulance took me. He tried to screw the support back into place, to make it look like everything had been where it should, like the pier had been safe, like I had just stood on it wrong.
Darek loosened it before I got there. He knew I would reach for that spot. He made sure it gave way when I leaned on it. I didn’t go home from the hospital.
Ola took me to her place. She helped me into the car, buckled my seatbelt carefully so it wouldn’t tug my sore shoulder, and only said, “My couch is uncomfortable, but at least no one will tell you you’re overreacting. ”
Then Wojtek called. Darek’s voice, pretending to be sorry.
“Listen, okay, maybe I moved that support, but I was trying to help. Come on, Wojtek. ”
I didn’t answer. He tried again.
“You coming back home and we end this farce, or you choosing this? ”
The stairwell smelled like cabbage, floor cleaner, and someone’s cigarette that nobody admitted to smoking. I knew that smell. I had lived with it for years.
But the first time I turned the key in the lock and walked in alone, without Renata behind me, without Darek in the doorway, without someone saying “Wojtek, come here for a second,” the place felt different. It felt like mine. The doctor said I had to get back to full function, not prove anything to anyone. I didn’t go back to the workshop right away.
I couldn’t lift, couldn’t rotate my shoulder, couldn’t strain my arm. But the wood pulled at me. I made a small shelf for Ola’s kitchen. Then a little box.
Then a picture frame. Not everything was mine to fix. I was learning that. One evening, Ola came home, went to the hallway, and came back with a small package wrapped in paper.
She opened it on the table. Inside: an old PKP ticket from a trip to Gdańsk, two buttons, a small coin, a dried leaf, a piece of blue ribbon. Nothing worth anything. Everything worth everything.
“They were mine,” she said. “From when I was a kid. ”
On the paper, in faded handwriting, there was a letter that started with the letter “M. ”
I looked at Ola.
She looked at me. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like someone had handed me a piece of their world without expecting anything back.