Part 6
She left the towel folded on the counter. The evening appointment she’d made with herself for Tuck’s walk came and went while she was sitting at the sewing machine, unable to decide which job to start. At six, she put on her shoes and went as far as the neighbor’s fence anyway.
There was nothing she needed to wait for at the patch of grass. She stayed a minute, then continued to the corner instead of going back inside. When Owen sent a picture of Tuck beside the new kitchen door, she enlarged it once and made herself put the phone in her pocket.
On Sunday, she took over the spoon she’d found under the dog-food bag. Owen opened the door with Tuck beside him and asked her to mind a cardboard box he hadn’t unpacked. She stepped over it, put the spoon where he pointed, and sat in the chair that didn’t hold his laundry.
Tuck came to her for a scratch, then returned to his bed. Ruth watched Owen lower his water bowl with his good hand, bracing it against the cabinet with his foot. She stayed for coffee. When she left, she had to walk past the dog to reach the door, and he stayed where he was.
After that, Owen began asking if she wanted to come along on an occasional walk. Some weeks she could, and some she had work to finish. Once she was late and called from her van before he had to wonder whether she was coming.
By late October, he had a small repair job for her.
The kitchen bench in his apartment had a split along its front edge. He’d bought it used because it fit between the refrigerator and the wall, but every time he sat down the crack caught the back of his leg. He sent Ruth a picture and asked what he should buy to mend it. She asked whether he wanted her to do the work or show him how.
He took until evening to answer. Show me, he wrote. If it’s not a whole production.
Ruth arrived Saturday with a canvas bag small enough to leave one hand free. Owen was standing at the counter, working the lid off the coffee can. His dressing was gone, though his fingers still didn’t move the way he wanted. He shifted the can against the wall and got the lid loose before she could offer.
Tuck came out of the bedroom at the sound of her voice. He walked more slowly than he used to at the yard, and Owen still followed the veterinarian’s limits on his activity. Ruth crouched sideways to greet him; he leaned in for a scratch, then sneezed directly into her open tool bag.
“Nice,” she said, taking out a pair of glasses and wiping them on her shirt.
Owen laughed hard enough to spill coffee over the rim of his mug. He had a dish towel on his shoulder and reached for it without looking. Ruth shut the bag before Tuck could inspect the spools of thread.
The bench cover was brown vinyl with a pattern pretending to be woven cloth. Ruth examined the split while Owen cleared the table. She could replace the whole top and make it look new, but that wasn’t the repair he’d asked about.
“I’ve got brown that won’t match,” she said. “Or blue that really won’t match.”
“Blue.”
She held up the scrap so he could see it in the window light. It was the last piece from the Sutter order. Owen ran his thumb over the smooth face and said Tuck would think they’d bought him furniture.
The dog’s old bed lay beyond the doorway, where he could see the kitchen and the small yard. The patch Ruth had repaired was dusty along one edge. Owen had put a chair beside it, with his jacket hanging over the back; the sleeve swung just above Tuck’s head when he lay down.
Graham had sent a partial payment on Ruth’s invoice earlier that month. Moss had told her the neglect investigation was continuing, and Ruth had answered one further question about Friday. She had not seen Graham since the keys went back. When he added a handwritten line asking after Tuck, she told him where the dog was living and that he was still being followed by the veterinarian.
Now she set her sewing kit on Owen’s table and opened it. The kit looked absurdly tidy in his kitchen, where a stack of unopened mail was holding down a corner of the grocery list. She moved the kit instead of the mail so he’d have room for his arm.
Owen could use his recovering hand to steady the material for short stretches, but the careful work had to be done with his right. He didn’t want her guiding his fingers. Ruth demonstrated on a separate scrap, then let him try while she held the cover where he asked.
The first attempt bunched at the edge. He pulled it out and started again, making a low, annoyed sound that brought Tuck’s head up. Ruth kept her eyes on the material.
“That part’s normal,” she said.
“The swearing?”
“You haven’t started swearing yet.”
He smiled without lifting his head. The next stitch came through where he wanted it, and he loosened his shoulders a fraction. Ruth reached for her coffee with the hand she wasn’t using to hold the cover.
Outside, somebody was moving empty bait tanks behind the store. There was a scrape of plastic across concrete, followed by a man’s voice telling another man to lift his end. Tuck watched the side door for a moment, then settled back with his muzzle on the edge of his bed.
Owen stopped to rest his hand. Ruth could see three places where she would have tightened the seam, and one where the thread sat slightly crooked. She put her glasses on to check that it would hold, then took them off again.
“All right?” he asked.
“It’ll do the job.”
“That’s what I need.”
He shifted his chair to get a better angle, and Tuck rose to investigate the space that opened beneath the table. Ruth moved her bag with her foot. The dog turned twice, found room between their shoes, and lay down with a long breath that stirred a thread clipping across the floor.
Owen picked up the cover again. This time Ruth waited until he asked her to hold it, then placed her hand where he showed her. Beneath the table, Tuck’s back settled against the side of her shoe while Owen worked the next stitch through.