Part 4
Claire left the ball in his hand and pulled her chair back to the table. They rested first, with Toby stretched across Walter’s feet, then made one more supported attempt. Afterward, Walter asked Ruth to put the other things where he could reach them the next morning.
Claire did not turn that afternoon into a lesson. When she came the following weekend, she found the equipment out and a damp ring beside Walter’s water glass. Ruth said they had practiced before breakfast; Walter corrected her that it had been after, because his hand had been stiff.
The disagreements grew smaller and more ordinary. He thought Ruth counted too quickly. She said he did an extra repetition when she was looking at the stove, then claimed she had lost track. Claire sometimes arrived to find both of them annoyed, which was easier to sit with than the old, careful silence.
As spring warmed into summer, Toby’s legs lengthened and his ears began to stand. He no longer fit comfortably across Walter’s lap, though he kept testing the possibility. Claire taught him to settle beside the chair, and Walter complained that she was making him too well behaved to be interesting.
They found ways to include him in the work. Walter would pick up a small dog treat with his affected hand and offer it while Claire steadied the container. At first most of the pieces fell; Toby had to learn to wait, and Walter had to learn that a dropped piece did not end the exercise.
Sometimes Claire picked it up. Sometimes Ruth did. Later Walter could try again with another piece while Toby watched so intently that a strand of saliva reached toward the floor.
“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Walter told him.
Toby thumped his tail. Walter managed to bring the next piece far enough that the dog could take it without leaning forward, and the small success kept him at the table for another minute.
By July he could hold a wooden spoon in his right hand. The first time, Claire nearly began counting aloud, then stopped herself. Walter was turning it slightly, examining the curve of the bowl as though the spoon itself had become more interesting than the time he could keep it lifted.
“Ruth,” he called. “Look at this handle. Somebody sanded straight across the grain.”
She came from the kitchen and leaned over his shoulder. “Terrible. We ought to demand our money back.”
“It came in a set from the grocery store.”
“Well, there you are.”
Claire laughed before she could help it. Walter looked mildly offended, but he kept the spoon until fatigue finally loosened his grip, and then he set it down himself.
His recovery was uneven. His right leg remained weak; standing practice and transfers still needed the arrangements his therapists had shown them. Some days he needed help with things he had managed the day before. Claire learned to ask what kind of morning he was having before she took anything out of her bag.
In August she brought a small block of basswood. They had discussed returning to tools cautiously, and Walter had already spent time holding covered handles and testing how long he could control them. Still, when she placed the wood on the table, he did not reach for it.
“It’s soft,” she said.
“I know what basswood is.”
“I know you do.”
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table. Claire waited, and after a while he asked her to bring the small vise from the chest.
She secured the block while he directed her. He changed its position twice, insisting on a little more room at the right, and she resisted the urge to explain how carefully she had already measured the space. This was his work surface. She shifted the vise again.
With Toby settled clear of the tools, Walter rested his forearm and waited for the trembling to ease. His first cut lifted a short, clean curl of pale wood. Ruth touched his shoulder, smiling, and Toby got up to wag at them; Walter turned the shaving over in his left hand before asking Claire to move the light. He needed to see where the next cut would go.
Over successive visits, the block became a dog, with oversized paws and an uneven chest. Walter could still lose control of a cut when he was tired, so the sessions stayed short. When he finished it late in August, one ear leaned too far and the left shoulder was broad. He checked that it stood before letting Claire hold it, then pointed out a place he had cut too deeply to repair. She could see Toby in it, but she could not tell him how the next piece would turn out.
Later, in the kitchen, Claire found Ruth pressing glue along the separating sole of an old boot. The refrigerator held half a carton of milk, leftover soup, and the groceries Claire had brought. Medical expenses still arrived whether Walter’s hand had a good week or a bad one.
Claire had begun helping with small bills as well as groceries. Ruth accepted the help carefully; Walter noticed more of it than either woman said aloud. That evening he moved an envelope Claire had left beside the fruit bowl beneath a newspaper.
At dinner, she set the wooden dog on the table between them.
“I’d like to photograph your work,” she said. “The pieces in the chest, and this one.”
“Why?”
“To sell them.”
He studied the figure. “The old ones, maybe. That isn’t up to much.”
“Let people look.”
“People can buy a plastic dog for three dollars.”
“Then we’ll find out whether anybody wants this kind.” Claire turned it so the uneven ears caught the light. “You can decide what it’s worth.”
Walter looked at Ruth. She had stopped eating, her fork held just above her plate.
“Bring your camera,” he said.
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇