Part 10
“Yes,” Nancy said. She turned slightly away from Paul and waited.
For a few seconds she heard only the little sounds of the new apartment: water running, a cupboard closing, Ben complaining as Leah put him down somewhere safe. Nancy started to ask what was wrong, then let the question wait.
“It’s quiet,” Leah said.
“Too quiet?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Nancy looked through the truck window. A woman was coming out of the grocery store with a loaf of bread under her arm, holding her cart steady while she searched for her keys. Nancy watched until the woman found them.
“I keep thinking I have to hurry and get everything done,” Leah said. “Nobody’s coming in. I can leave a box in the middle of the floor if I want.”
Nancy settled against the passenger door, the empty laundry bags crackling beneath her hand.
“The kitchen stuff can wait,” she said.
Leah was quiet again. Then Otis’s nails sounded near the phone, followed by the bell: a small, imperfect clang.
“You hung it up.”
“He’s already found it.”
Nancy heard her daughter walking toward a door. Leah said she would call later, and Nancy let the conversation end without asking when. At the next corner, Paul asked whether everything was all right. She said she thought so, and that was as much as she knew.
Six weeks later, Nancy waited outside the duplex with a bag of clean kitchen towels and the small loaf Leah had asked her to pick up. It was a weekday afternoon. The bus stop was a few blocks away, and Nancy had allowed too much time for the walk, arriving twelve minutes early.
She could hear Ben inside. The sound was louder now, impatient and full of breath, followed by Leah talking to him in the voice Nancy remembered from the hospital. Nancy checked the time and stayed on the front step.
Finch Laundry had reopened after the repairs and inspections, but the delivery route had not. Nancy worked behind the counter and took the bus for the trips it could manage. For others, she asked Paul in advance or waited. Some customers had gone elsewhere during the closure, and their empty spaces in the order book remained empty.
She had moved back upstairs. The apartment was safe to occupy, with the work completed and new alarms in place, but she still woke sometimes expecting to hear Ben through the wall. Once she had got as far as his old doorway before remembering the room now held the spare folding table.
Leah’s visits to the pediatrician continued. At the latest appointment, she told Nancy, Ben’s progress had been encouraging. There were still things to watch over time, and Leah kept the next appointment card in the green folder. Nancy asked what the doctor had said and listened to the answer without trying to make it more comforting.
The front door opened. Leah looked surprised to find her there.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“A few minutes. The bus was early.”
“You could have knocked.”
Nancy smiled a little. “I didn’t want to start ahead of schedule.”
Leah stepped back to let her in. The room was warmer than the sidewalk, smelling faintly of toast and the soap her daughter used on Ben’s clothes. A narrow table now stood against one wall, with a chair that had to be moved whenever the closet door opened. Nancy noticed and said nothing.
Ben sat on a blanket near Leah’s feet, surrounded by three objects he had apparently chosen over the available toys: a measuring cup, a clean washcloth, and the lid from a plastic container. Otis lay on the other side of the room with his chin between his paws.
Nancy set the loaf on the counter. “Where would you like the towels?”
“That drawer. I finally found a place for them.”
Nancy fitted the towels into the drawer. Then she washed her hands and sat on the floor at a little distance from Ben.
He examined her shoes first. One lace had come loose during the walk, and he leaned toward it with such concentration that Nancy tucked it out of reach. He objected with a sharp little syllable, then offered her the lid instead.
She took it gravely. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Ben reached for it back. Nancy returned it, and he inspected the edge as if checking what she had done while it was in her possession.
Leah sat in the chair beside them, drinking tea that was still hot. There were unopened envelopes on the table and a basket of laundry near the bedroom door.
“Would folding that help?” she asked.
Leah followed her glance. “Later, maybe. Sit for now.”
Nancy stayed on the floor. Her knee would complain when she got up, and she would need the chair to steady herself, but there was no reason to do that yet.
Otis rose and walked to the back door. The bell sounded once. Ben turned toward it, startled out of his work with the lid, and made a soft, delighted noise.
Nancy looked at Leah. Her daughter set down the tea and picked Ben up, holding him securely against her hip.
“Would you get the door, Mom?”
Nancy rose with a hand on the chair. She opened it onto the small fenced yard, and Otis went out ahead of them, stopping to nose at a leaf caught against the step. Leah followed with Ben. Nancy stayed beside the open door until her daughter shifted to make room for her.
Ben leaned over Leah’s arm and held out the damp corner of his washcloth.