The chair arrived on a Thursday, though Mira had been told Tuesday. She had moved the plant away from the window twice already. The repairer stood in the doorway holding it by the back, as if it were a well-behaved animal. “The joint was worse than it looked,” he said. Mira nodded. She had learned that this was true of most things people brought back late.
Her father had sat in that chair every afternoon, never quite facing the window. He preferred the angle from which he could see both the street and the door. After he died, Mira had kept the chair in the kitchen until one leg gave way beneath a bag of flour. She had cried at the flour, which seemed unreasonable, and then taken the chair to be repaired.
Now the repairer set it down and asked her to try it. The seat was firm. It did not creak. That was the first disappointment. “Good?” he asked. She said yes, because it was. He left a receipt on the table and pulled the door gently shut. Mira remained seated with her coat on. Across the street, someone was trying to fit a large framed picture into a small car.
She turned the chair towards the window. For a moment this felt like moving her father further away. Then the afternoon light caught the repaired joint, a pale line against the darker wood. It was visible if you knew where to look. Mira took off her coat and fetched her book. When her neighbour knocked, she heard him perfectly well from where she sat.
This is an original fictional story. Its characters and events are invented. Created with AI-assisted writing for Lorevion.