Part 6
Claire arranged two days off and called Ruth with the answer before she could fill either day with something else. Ruth asked whether she ate roast pork, then whether Toby had outgrown the bed she kept beside Walter’s chair. The practical questions made it easier for Claire to say how much she was looking forward to coming.
On Christmas Eve, nearly a year after the evening at the station, she drove through falling snow with a grown German shepherd secured in the back seat. He recognized the final turn before she slowed for it. By the time she parked, his tail was brushing steadily against the upholstery.
Claire carried food and presents up the familiar stairs. Ruth opened the door before she knocked, wearing a burgundy dress and a knitted shawl, and took one bag while Toby hurried past them. From the living room came Walter’s voice telling him to get out from underfoot.
Walter stood near the window with a cane in his left hand. Claire had seen the work that made standing possible and knew how quickly he could tire, but she still stopped at the sight of him waiting there for her. He had put on a clean shirt and buttoned it slowly himself.
Toby pressed his nose against Walter’s right palm. Walter rubbed the dog’s forehead, then turned carefully toward the table, where Ruth had laid three places beneath the branches of a small Christmas tree.
“Come sit,” he said. “She’s been telling me not to touch the potatoes for twenty minutes.”
Dinner passed in the comfortable disorder of serving dishes and repeated offers of more. Claire heard about a carving sent to Oregon and the new stove that had made Ruth suspicious because it heated so quickly. Walter complained about shipping-box prices, then asked if anyone wanted the last roll before taking it.
Afterward, Claire gave Ruth a warm winter coat. Walter unwrapped a set of Japanese carving tools and studied each one with the concentration she remembered from the operating room, turning the handles to see how they would sit in his hand.
He closed the box and looked at Ruth. She nodded toward the sideboard, but when she moved to help, he shook his head and rose carefully with his cane.
The parcel he brought back was small enough to hold against his chest. He set it in Claire’s hands before sitting down again.
“This is yours,” he said.
Inside the soft wrapping was a wooden figure of a woman kneeling in a winter coat. Her arms curved around a shepherd puppy, whose oversized feet rested against her sleeve. Claire knew the coat before she understood the face.
The hem spread over the carved ground in the same awkward fold it had made when she crouched beside Ruth’s box. One of the woman’s hands supported the puppy; the other gathered him close beneath her chin. There was tiredness in the lowered shoulders, and a tenderness Claire would not have known how to put into her own face.
She ran a fingertip along the sleeve. The grain moved through the woman’s hand and into the small animal she held.
“Ruth told me how you picked him up,” Walter said. “I had to ask her about six times. She got tired of telling it.”
“I did not,” Ruth said. “I got tired of you asking whether I was certain.”
Claire tried to speak, but the first sound failed. Walter watched her with the same guarded attention he had given the rough dog on the table in August, waiting for her to finish looking.
“Three months,” Ruth said softly. “He kept it covered whenever your car came in.”
There was a tiny unevenness at the woman’s shoulder. Claire rested her thumb there and remembered all the times she had sat beside Walter while he put a tool down because his hand would not do another minute’s work. She had thought she knew what he was making on the days she was absent.
Toby came to her chair and laid his heavy head across her knees. She bent over him with the carving held close, unable for a moment to manage either of them without crying.
“Watch the ear,” Walter said gently. “The wooden one. It’s thin.”
That made her laugh, badly, through the tears. She shifted the figure into a safer grip and stroked Toby’s neck with her free hand, while Ruth brought a folded napkin without making her ask.
“I don’t know where to put it,” Claire said at last. “Somewhere I’ll see it when I come in.”
“Somewhere he can’t reach,” Walter said, nodding at Toby. “He doesn’t respect the material.”
Ruth laughed and began clearing plates. Claire stood to help, but Ruth pointed her back toward the chair until she had put the carving somewhere safe. She set it on the sideboard, away from the edge, and returned for the dishes.
In the kitchen, she found the chipped mug already waiting beside the kettle. It was the one Ruth gave her now without asking. Claire picked it up, then stood holding it while Ruth rinsed the serving spoon.
“You all right, honey?”
Claire nodded. She had spent so much of the year arriving with something in her hands: groceries, equipment, a camera, an envelope. Ruth was waiting for an answer from her now, and there was nothing practical she could offer in its place.
“I’m glad you asked me to come.”
“Well, of course I asked.” Ruth passed her the dish towel. “Dry that before Walter decides he ought to do it and gets us both wet.”
Claire took the towel. They worked beside each other, passing dishes across the small counter, and she stayed there after the last plate was dry because Ruth had begun telling her something about the coat.
Back at the table, Walter had moved his chair so his right leg could rest comfortably. The cane leaned within reach, and the wheelchair was still in its usual place by the wall. Claire sat down where her cup stood; nobody asked when she would have to leave.
Walter opened the tool box again and began explaining which handle he intended to reshape. Claire asked why, and he set two tools side by side, showing her the difference with his left finger while his right hand rested on the table.
Beneath them, Toby turned once and lay down across their feet. Claire moved her shoe so he had room, wrapped both hands around her tea, and listened while Walter told her what he would make from the next piece of wood.