Sunday was the only day of the week the record shop was closed.
Ethan didn't wake up until eleven-fifteen AM.
The sun was shining brightly through his bedroom window, casting long yellow rectangles across his hardwood floor. The rain had completely stopped, and the city outside sounded quiet, sleepy, and relaxed.
Ethan lay in bed for twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling plaster where the water stain had dried into a shape that looked vaguely like South America.
His body felt bruised from head to toe—his lower back stiff, his forearms tight, his right big toe still sore from the hole in his sock—but for the first time in weeks, his mind wasn't running through a list of broken things he had to fix.
He got up, pulled on his grey bathrobe, and walked into the kitchen to make coffee.
While the moka pot was heating on the stove, he picked up his phone from the table.
There was one text message from Maya, sent at ten-thirty AM:
Sarah says thanks again for saving the tent. She left a box of cinnamon rolls on your truck hood. Grab them before the squirrels do.
Ethan smiled, typing back: On it. Thanks.
He put on his slippers, walked down the dark interior staircase of his apartment building, and stepped out into the bright alley behind the building.
Sure enough, sitting right on the faded red hood of his Ford F-150 was a brown paper bakery box tied with white string.
He picked it up—it was still slightly warm—and walked back upstairs to his kitchen.
He sat at his small table, drinking hot black coffee and eating a warm cinnamon roll, looking out the window at the quiet rooftops of the neighborhood.
Around two PM, he decided to tackle the dual-cassette deck for Marcus that had been sitting on his workbench for two weeks.
The replacement rubber drive belts he’d ordered from Ohio had arrived in his mailbox yesterday afternoon.
He cleared a space on the table, laid out his small tools, and opened the cassette deck’s metal casing.
With slow, careful movements, using his tweezers and a small pair of needle-nose pliers, he looped the new black rubber belt around the motor pulley and stretched it over the flywheel assembly.
CLICK.
The belt slid into the groove perfectly. No snapping, no slipping.
Ethan plugged the unit into the wall outlet, pressed a black cassette tape into drive bay A, and hit the heavy plastic PLAY button.
The small red indicator light turned on, the gears whirred quietly, and clear, crisp music filled his small apartment living room.
Ethan sat back in his chair, wiping his hands on a clean paper towel, watching the two small reels turn smoothly behind the clear plastic door.
It was working.
He picked up his phone, snapped a quick five-second video of the tape playing, and sent it to Maya with the caption: Fixed.
Two minutes later, his phone buzzed.
Maya: Miracles do happen. Now fix your life.
Ethan laughed out loud in his empty apartment, setting his phone down beside his coffee mug, listening to the quiet, steady rhythm of the music playing in the sunny room.
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