Part 5
The next morning, Eli called the historical society before he could give himself time to invent a reason not to. The board chair assumed he wanted different terms.
“I’m not negotiating,” Eli said. “I’m leaving March thirty-first.”
“You’ve been at Loon Harbor Light almost twenty years.”
“Eighteen.”
“We could shorten the winter schedule.”
“No.”
“Is this about the stairs?”
Eli looked through his kitchen window at the white tower. “It’s about me acting as if the stairs become somebody else’s problem when I can’t manage them.”
There was a pause on the line. The board chair asked whether Eli could help train his replacement, and Eli said yes.
His second call went to Ruth.
“Still know who owns the Huron Street apartment?” he asked.
“I knew you’d come around.”
“You did not.”
“I hoped with unusual confidence.”
The apartment occupied the ground floor of a narrow house two blocks from the clinic. It had a small fenced yard, a gas furnace less than five years old, and a landlord willing to allow one dog.
Eli disliked the low ceilings, the view of the drugstore parking lot, and the fact that he could hear the town’s single stoplight clicking through its cycle when the windows were open. He signed the lease.
Wade arrived that afternoon with a tape measure. He checked the bathroom wall for a grab rail, measured the back steps for a shallow ramp, and wrote the numbers on the inside of his glove.
“You told Wade before me?”
Claire stood in the clinic doorway holding a box of medical supplies. Eli had intended to wait until he possessed every answer.
“He had a tape measure,” Eli said.
She looked at the folded lease in his hand. “What is that?”
“Your father’s moving to town.”
“You hate town.”
“Loon Harbor has one stoplight. I’ll endure it.”
“Why?”
He could have blamed the dogs, the stairs, or his knee. Each answer would have been partly true and mostly evasive.
“Because you shouldn’t have to plan your life around whether I answer the phone.”
Claire’s eyes dropped to the lease. “I haven’t accepted Duluth.”
“I know.”
“It’s not only because of you.”
“I know that too.”
“You think signing one lease fixes eighteen months?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Starting with the lease.”
For a moment neither of them moved. Then Claire gave a short, unwilling laugh.
“Huron Street floods near the alley.”
“Wade checked the grade.”
“Of course he did.”
She placed the supply box on the floor and read the lease from beginning to end.
“They allow only one dog.”
“One is the number I can manage.”
“Which one?”
Eli looked through the clinic window. Copper was lying beside Sadie’s recovery pen, one front paw touching the plaid bed through the wire.
“The difficult one.”
“That does not narrow it down.”
“The one who traveled.”
Claire folded the lease along its original crease and returned it to him.
“If you take the job,” Eli said, “I’ll be all right here.”
She did not call Duluth immediately. First she checked Sadie’s shoulder while Eli steadied the support sling, then made a list with him of what the apartment needed. Before the clinic closed, she called.
Two weeks later, with the county hold already expired and no owner found, Wade took Sadie and the two smaller puppies to his workshop. The old plaid bed went into a warm corner beside his workbench, and he built a low barrier that allowed the mother to see the room without letting the puppies investigate power tools.
Copper went with them at first. Once his paws healed, Wade brought him to the Huron Street apartment for a trial afternoon.
The puppy inspected every room, stole one of Eli’s gloves, and fell asleep beneath Maggie’s old wooden kitchen table. Eli signed the foster-to-adopt papers.
Training a new keeper and emptying the cottage took the rest of the winter. Eli packed his Coast Guard photographs, weather journals, tools, and Maggie’s stoneware bread plate. He left the historical society’s furniture and donated what would not fit in the apartment.
In the last week of March, Wade offered to carry Maggie’s sewing chest. Eli nearly said no. The chest was not particularly heavy, and he could still manage it if he took the stairs slowly.
“Bottom drawer sticks,” Eli said. “Keep it level.”
Wade lifted one end, Claire the other.
Eli carried nothing down those stairs except the lighthouse keys.
At the bottom, he handed them to his replacement and did not ask for them back.
By early April, the high snowbanks had collapsed into gray ridges along Loon Harbor’s streets. Sadie walked comfortably most days, though on cold mornings, the injured shoulder still put a hitch in her gait. She slept each night on Scout’s old plaid bed in Wade’s workshop while he continued to describe the arrangement as temporary. The two smaller puppies went together to a family outside Marquette after Claire approved the home, and Ruth sent them away with a bag of proper dog food and strict instructions that bread was not a complete diet.
Copper stayed with Eli.
With regular meals, his red coat thickened and his paws healed. He learned that the sound of Eli opening the refrigerator usually meant nothing for him.
He remained interested in bread.
On the Saturday Claire left for Duluth, she found Eli making breakfast in the Huron Street kitchen. Her car was packed, the roads were clear, and her new clinic expected her Monday.
Copper lay beneath Maggie’s table, watching the toaster.
“You have your medication?” Claire asked.
“Drawer beside the sink.”
“Furnace service?”
“Tuesday.”
“First recheck?”
“Thursday at ten.”
“For Copper or you?”
“Yes.”
Claire poured coffee into a travel mug. She checked the kitchen-window latch a second time.
Eli placed two pieces of toast on the table.
“You’ll call when you get there,” he said.
“That sounds almost like a request.”
“I’m experimenting.”
She sat across from him. For a few minutes they ate in silence. A truck passed outside. The stoplight clicked. Copper’s tail moved beneath the table whenever one of them shifted a foot.
Claire reached for her mug. Copper rose, took the heel of toast from Eli’s plate, and retreated. Eli stopped with one hand above the table.
The puppy carried the bread beneath Maggie’s old chair. For an instant he stood there with it in his mouth, listening toward the door. Then he lay down. He braced the heel between his front paws and ate it where he was.