Selma arrived from Sweden with two suitcases and a list of things to finish in ten days. Her parents' house stood empty, the grass was high, and the garage key would not turn. A neighbor recommended a locksmith. When Almir appeared, she recognized the little scar beside his eyebrow before recognizing the man who carried it.
As students they had shared notes and once kissed behind a cinema. Then Selma left, Almir married, both divorced, and every visit home became too short for a meeting. While he repaired the lock, she asked whether he remembered the film. He did not. He remembered her looking for a lost glove afterward and refusing his because his hands were always cold.
She invited him to dinner in the house she intended to sell. They ate from mismatched plates among boxes of books. Selma described a life in which everything was organized except her reason for getting up. Almir listened, then showed her a photograph of the small workshop he had recently rented. He had plenty of reasons to get up, mostly bills that did not wait for the right mood.
On the third evening she said she might stay because of him. She expected a smile, perhaps an embrace. Almir put down his glass and said he did not want to become the answer to a question she had not yet asked herself. He had already once been the man for whom somebody stayed in town; afterward every bad winter became his responsibility. Offended, Selma said she was not asking for a guarantee.
"Then don't give me the job of being one," he replied. He left early. The next day she walked through the house alone, opened cupboards, and realized she no longer wanted either to recreate her parents' life or escape her own. She called the agent and kept the sale on track. Then she asked her employer in Sweden about working remotely for several months without mentioning Almir as a business reason.
They met again on the last day of her visit. She showed him her return ticket and a reservation for a small apartment in spring. She said she would come even if they never kissed again. Almir smiled for the first time that week. "That gives me a much better chance," he said. They walked to the now-closed cinema and discussed things neither knew about the other.
In spring he met her outside the rented apartment. He brought tools rather than flowers because she had asked beforehand whether he could install a shelf. Selma opened the window, placed two cups on the floor, and showed him where she wanted her books. Almir measured the wall. Their first kiss of that visit came only after lunch, without trying to repeat the old one behind the cinema.