Chapter 2: The Weight of Small Things
Morning arrived without knocking.
A truck backfired outside the motel, dragging Kaleb from shallow sleep. For a second he forgot where he was. Then he felt the warmth pressed against his side and remembered everything at once.
Sera.
The single bulb was off, but thin daylight leaked through the torn curtain. She was already awake, propped on one elbow, studying him like he was a problem she meant to solve gently.
"You snore," she said.
"I don't."
"You do."
He reached for her hand instead of arguing. The silver band caught the light—plain, solid, impossibly real.
"Still married?" she asked.
He squeezed her fingers. "Looks like."
They laughed softly, as if noise might break the spell.
They checked out before the clerk could grow suspicious of how little luggage they carried. Outside, the city smelled of fried dough and diesel.
Kaleb glanced at the noodle stall across the street. "Breakfast?"
Sera nodded. "But this time we split fair."
They ate standing up, steam fogging the cool air. Kaleb forced himself to eat slower today. Husband, he reminded himself. Husband meant not swallowing life like someone might snatch it away.
When they finished, he wiped his hands on his jeans. "I've got the yard till dusk."
"I'll walk with you," Sera said.
"You don't have to."
"I know."
The scrap-yard looked the same as always—metal stacked like broken ribs, cranes looming against a pale sky—but something inside Kaleb had shifted. The place felt smaller now. Contained.
Old Mira spotted them first.
"Well," she cackled, eyeing Sera. "You bring sunshine now?"
Kaleb flushed. "Morning, Mira."
The foreman leaned out of his shed. "You're late."
"Five minutes," Kaleb replied.
"Five minutes is pay."
Kaleb stepped forward, ready to argue, but Sera's hand brushed his wrist—brief, grounding. He swallowed the retort and moved toward the van pile.
Work swallowed him whole. Metal screamed. Gloves tore. Grease crawled into every cut.
At noon, he noticed something strange.
Sera wasn't collecting scrap.
She was watching.
Not lazily—carefully. Counting trucks. Noting which loads went straight to the crusher and which detoured toward the locked warehouse by the far fence.
When he finally staggered over for water, chest burning, she handed him the bottle.
"You ever been inside that building?" she asked casually, nodding toward the warehouse.
Kaleb snorted. "That's management. We're metal rats, remember?"
"Mm."
"You thinking of applying?" he teased.
She didn't smile.
Instead she said, "How much does one full truck of copper bring?"
He blinked. "I don't know. Thousands, maybe. Why?"
She studied the yard again, eyes sharp in a way that didn't belong to someone wearing charity-bin sneakers.
"Just wondering what they think is small," she murmured.
By late afternoon, clouds rolled in heavy and low. The air tasted metallic.
Kaleb's sack was fuller than yesterday—good wiring run from an old generator—but his back screamed. He imagined a room with a lock. Two bowls. Maybe even a second-hand mattress.
He imagined Sera in that room.
The thought steadied him.
When the shift whistle blew, rain began in hard, slanted sheets. Workers scattered. The foreman barked orders.
Kaleb grabbed Sera's hand. "Run!"
They ducked under the overhang of the locked warehouse. Rain hammered the tin roof like thrown nails.
Sera leaned against the wall, breath even. Too even.
"You're not tired," he said.
"I didn't work."
"You watched."
She nodded.
Thunder cracked.
For a long moment they stood in the roar of rain. Then—through the noise—Kaleb heard another sound.
Engines.
Not yard trucks. Smoother. Heavier.
Two black SUVs rolled through the main gate.
Kaleb frowned. "We don't get visitors."
The foreman rushed forward, suddenly polite, cap in hand. The SUVs parked near the warehouse. Doors opened.
Men stepped out in dark coats—city shoes, not yard boots.
Sera went very still.
One of the men scanned the yard once. Clinical. Searching.
His gaze passed over the workers—over Kaleb—
—and stopped on Sera.
Not recognition.
Confirmation.
Kaleb felt her fingers tighten around his.
"Friends of yours?" he joked weakly.
She didn't answer.
The man spoke briefly with the foreman. An envelope changed hands. Then the man started walking toward the overhang.
Toward them.
Kaleb's pulse stumbled. "Sera?"
She turned to him, and in her eyes he saw something he hadn't before.
Not fear.
Decision.
"If I tell you to run," she said quietly, "you run."
"What? Why would I—"
"Kaleb." Her voice sharpened, slicing through rain and confusion. "Promise me."
He stared at her. "We're married."
"I know."
"That means we don't run alone."
Something flickered across her face—pain? pride?—gone in a blink.
The man stopped three paces away. Rain beaded on his coat without soaking in.
"Miss Ardin," he said calmly.
Kaleb felt the name like a dropped wrench.
Sera Ardin.
Not scrap Sera.
Not charity-bin Sera.
Ardin.
The man's eyes slid to Kaleb, assessing value the way buyers weighed copper.
"You've caused considerable inconvenience," he continued.
Sera stepped slightly in front of Kaleb.
"I needed a week," she replied.
"You've had one."
Thunder rolled again.
Kaleb's mind scrambled to catch up. "What's going on?"
Sera didn't look back at him.
The man opened the envelope. Inside—papers. Official. Heavy with seals.
"Your father is unwell," the man said. "The board insists you return immediately."
Board.
Father.
Return.
The words did not belong to this yard.
Kaleb's throat dried. "Return where?"
Sera finally turned to him.
And smiled.
Small.
Careful.
"I told you," she said softly. "I've seen big."
The rain intensified, washing grease from the concrete in black rivers.
Kaleb looked from her silver ring… to the polished SUV… to the men waiting without impatience.
"You're leaving?" he asked.
Her hand rose to his cheek.
"Only if you let me go alone."
The world tilted.
Behind them, the foreman pretended not to watch. Workers whispered.
Miss Ardin.
Board.
Father.
Kaleb swallowed hard.
All his life he had dreamed of small: a lock, a meal, a steady floor.
Now big had arrived at the scrap-yard gate.
And it was asking for his wife.
The man checked his watch.
"We're on a schedule."
Sera's fingers slipped from Kaleb's skin.
"Decide," she whispered.
The rain kept falling.
And for the first time in his life, Kaleb understood that wealth was not coins in his palm—
—but choices that could break him.
End of Chapter 2