Part 6
“If your mother agrees and the county approves me,” Graham said.
Caleb’s shoulders loosened, but Graham held up a hand before the boy could answer for anyone else. “I’ll ask her. You’re not making the promise for her.”
Dana agreed after reading Graham’s application at the kitchen table and asking what would happen if he sold the cabin. He told her the truth: the listing was paused until spring, and he had not decided after that. If he moved, Bean would move with him. If he took emergency repair work overnight, Ruth had a key and Caleb was willing to be the backup named on the form.
“This isn’t payment for finding Nell,” Dana said.
“I know.”
“And if you decide you’re too busy, you call us before you hand her to somebody else.”
“Put it in the agreement,” Graham said. Dana did.
The next morning broke clear and cold. For the first time since the storm, Larkspur Pass showed its dark shoulders above the pines. Caleb arrived early with a clean blanket spread across the back seat of Dana’s truck and a new tag on Nell’s collar. Patch wore a smaller red collar and tripped over the loose end until Caleb shortened it.
Ruth brought cinnamon rolls and cried openly while denying it. “Wood smoke,” she said, standing ten feet from the chimney. Graham packed Nell’s medication, clinic records, favorite metal bowl, and the chewed section of the fireplace broom into a plastic tote.
She stood at the edge of the porch in jeans and a charcoal coat, Anna’s scarf looped once around her neck. She had driven from Denver the night before, picked the scarf up from the mudroom bench, and slept at Ruth’s. The harmonica case made a straight line in her coat pocket.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Graham said.
“Caleb asked me.” Graham nodded and did not ask what else had brought her.
Nell moved between her puppies, touching each shoulder with her nose. She had begun to discourage nursing and no longer panicked when one wandered out of sight, but the open truck door made her pace. Caleb crouched beside her without calling. Graham held the leash loosely.
“Take her up first,” Dana said. “Patch will follow.”
Graham could have lifted Nell into the back seat. Instead he put the leash in Caleb’s hand.
The boy gave their three-note whistle. Nell looked at Graham, looked at Bean beside his boot, and stepped toward Caleb. At the truck she stopped again. Caleb climbed into the back seat and waited.
Graham opened the door wider.
Nell put her front paws on the running board. She turned, came back to Bean, and washed the puppy’s face with three rough strokes of her tongue. Bean squinted, indignant. Then Nell crossed to Graham and pressed her folded ear against his thigh.
He scratched once beneath her collar. “Go on.”
She jumped into the truck.
Patch scrambled after her, missed the running board, and was lifted by Dana with a laugh that broke halfway through. Nell arranged him beneath her chest and settled against Caleb’s legs. When Dana closed the door, Bean cried once.
Graham picked her up but did not hide her inside his coat. He held her where she could watch the truck turn down the drive.
Sophie stood beside him until the sound of the engine disappeared below the creek. Ruth carried the empty cinnamon-roll pan inside. Neither Graham nor Sophie followed.
“I lied to you,” he said. “Not because I forgot. Not because the timing was bad. I kept something that was yours.”
Sophie pulled one end of the scarf through the loop at her throat. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked toward the road. “I don’t know what to do with that yet.”
“You don’t have to do anything for me.”
Bean shifted in his arms, trying to climb toward the zipper on his coat. Graham lowered her to the porch. The puppy sat on his left boot and stared at Sophie.
“Are you still selling?” Sophie asked.
“I told the realtor no photographs, no listing, until I can tell whether I want to leave or just want not to remember.”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Sophie crouched and offered Bean the back of her hand. “Mom loved this house.”
“She was also always asking why the bathroom floor tilted.”
“It does tilt.”
“I fixed it twice.”
“You made it tilt in a different direction.”
Graham felt a laugh begin and did not trust it. Sophie heard anyway. Her expression did not soften exactly, but it became less guarded.
“I’m not staying because I think you’ll fall apart if I leave,” she said.
“All right.”
“And I’m still angry.”
“All right.”
“You can say something else.”
He looked at her, at Anna’s red scarf moving in the light wind, at the daughter he had once taught to drive on this road and then shut out because he could not bear the road himself. “There’s soup,” he said. “Ruth made enough for a battalion. If you want some.”
Sophie stood. “I want the crash story again after dinner. From the restaurant to the hospital. No shortcuts.”
Fear moved through him with the old physical precision: dry mouth, tight chest, an urge to reduce the world to tasks. Bean tugged at his bootlace. He bent, freed the lace from her teeth, and left it untied.
“Okay,” he said. Sophie went inside first. Graham followed without closing the door until Bean had chosen to come through it…
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