Part 7
At the highway, Ruth took the road home. Her phone lay facedown on the passenger seat beside the notebook, and she left it there until she had parked in her own driveway. There was no message from Ashbank.
She carried the bag inside, then returned for the folding chair. It was awkward rather than heavy; she managed it against her left hip and set it in the workroom, where one metal foot caught the edge of the rug. The old towel around its arm had worn almost transparent.
For a while she stood looking at it. Then she found her scissors and cut away the wire holding the towel in place. Beneath it, the vinyl had split along a seam she knew how to repair.
Fran’s chair came first.
Ruth laid its finished seat upside down on the worktable and checked the position of the new webbing. She’d pulled one section too tight, trying to compensate for what her right arm couldn’t do. It would make the seat harder at one edge than the other.
She loosened it and started that section again. The work took longer than she had told Fran it would. Around eight, she caught herself listening for the lion, though the only sound outside was a neighbor rolling a trash bin down the driveway.
She stopped for supper instead of eating over the chair.
On Monday, Fran arrived with the old cushion cover folded inside a grocery bag. Ruth had offered to replace it, but Fran liked the faded green fabric and wanted it kept if there was enough sound material around the edges.
“There is,” Ruth said. “It won’t look new.”
“I didn’t ask for new.”
They worked the seat into position together. When Ruth reached for a tool above shoulder height, she stopped and asked Fran to get it. Fran handed it down without praising her for asking.
Afterward they carried the chair to the kitchen. Fran sat, shifted her weight, and ran a hand along the front edge of the seat. Ruth watched her face with the same unwilling attention she’d once given Otis at a doorway.
“Better,” Fran said. “The old one tilted.”
“You could’ve told me that in April.”
“I did.”
Ruth looked at her. Fran lifted one eyebrow, and Ruth laughed, a short, surprised sound that hurt her shoulder a little.
Her phone rang while they were having coffee. Tessa’s name appeared on the screen, and Ruth set her cup down too fast, spilling a little into the saucer.
“He’s all right,” Tessa said before Ruth asked. “I’m calling about the Friday supply order. Did you put a measurement for the old freezer seal in your notebook?”
Ruth closed her eyes briefly, then opened the notebook on the table. She found the number between the copied evening observations and a list that included coffee filters twice. Tessa wrote it down and read it back.
“How did last night go?” Ruth asked.
“He went into the new house later. Came out once, went back. Daniel stayed for the scheduled checks. We’ll keep watching the pattern.”
“Good.” Ruth looked at Fran’s repaired chair. “I’m having coffee. Can I call you later if I find the supplier’s name?”
“Of course.”
After hanging up, she left the phone on the table. Fran was telling her about a tear in another chair, a much uglier one, and wanted to know whether the owner should bring it over or put it on the curb. Ruth asked to see a picture before committing herself.
Six weeks later, Tessa came to the workroom with a coat whose lining had pulled away beneath one arm. Their final paid follow-up about Otis was already finished; this visit had been arranged for a Saturday afternoon, with no care sheets on the table between them.
Rain rattled against the window. Tessa put the coat down carefully, as though its torn lining were a personal failing, and Ruth turned it inside out to inspect the seam. It was a good coat, worth repairing, though whoever last worked on it had caught too little fabric along one edge.
“Can you do it?” Tessa asked.
“Yes. Can you stay?”
Tessa checked the time and put her phone in her bag. The afternoon was covered, and Daniel would lead the evening routine. Otis was using the new house reliably now.
Ruth had seen the latest report during their follow-up. There were notes about a difficult morning, an adjustment, a day when he ate well. The pages didn’t offer the complete assurance she’d once hoped to get from staying beside him, but she understood how to read them.
“I’ve got an hour,” Tessa said.
“Then you can help.”
They opened the seam together. Ruth showed her where the fabric had begun to fray and how much could be saved without pulling the lining tight across the shoulder. Tessa listened with the serious expression she’d worn years earlier when learning to check a water valve.
Ruth had to stop twice to rest her arm. Tessa used the pauses to ask questions instead of offering to finish the entire repair for her. Outside, a delivery truck passed, spraying rainwater up from the curb.
At the sewing machine, Ruth demonstrated a few stitches, then moved aside. Tessa took the chair, put her foot on the pedal, and made the machine run faster than she’d intended. She stopped with the fabric crooked beneath the needle.
“Sorry.”
Ruth’s hand had already risen toward the cloth. She lowered it to the table and waited while Tessa found the control again.
“Can I back up?” Tessa asked.
“A little. Watch that fold on your left.”
Tessa straightened the lining, tried the pedal, and brought the next inch through slowly. Ruth sat beside her, with the rest of the coat supported across her knees.