Part 3
The receiver clicked into its cradle. Evelyn left her hand on it for a moment, then drew it into her lap.
She rubbed her knuckles with her thumb. The place Nora had touched seemed warmer than the rest of her skin.
After lunch, Daniel took Nora to the neighborhood playground. The wind had eased, and sunlight had dried most of the paths. She wore a hat Alma had knitted, with one earflap longer than the other.
Daniel watched from a bench while she pumped her legs on a swing. Each time she came forward, her boots pointed at him.
A boy fell near the slide. Before his mother reached him, Nora had hopped down and crouched at his side. Daniel couldn’t hear what she said. He saw her brush grit from the boy’s palm and lean close to inspect it very seriously.
The boy’s mouth, wide open for another cry, slowly closed. He listened, then laughed.
Later, a smaller child stumbled over a root. Nora helped him up, dusted the seat of his pants, and spoke into his ear as though entrusting him with important business. He ran back toward the climbing frame.
“Been watching that little one awhile.”
Daniel turned. An elderly man had settled at the other end of the bench, a paper sack of birdseed between his knees.
“She’s mine,” Daniel said.
“Figured.” The man scattered a pinch of seed well away from the children. “My grandson comes here. Yours is always the first one over when somebody gets hurt.”
“She doesn’t like to see people cry.”
“More to it than that, maybe. My grandmother would’ve recognized her.”
Daniel looked at him.
The man folded the top of his sack. “People used to fetch my grandmother when a fever wouldn’t break. She’d sit by a bed and talk, sometimes all night. By morning, folks often felt better. She called it a gift.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I watched her.”
On the playground, Nora was showing the fallen boy how to make a whistle out of his cupped hands. Neither child appeared to be succeeding.
Daniel bent forward, forearms on his knees.
“How do you tell something like that from somebody just being good to you?”
The man smiled toward the swings.
“Being good to a person can do a fair amount.”
By Thursday, Evelyn had finished the fresh fruit that normally spoiled in her refrigerator. She had also begun doing her shoulder exercises without a file propped open beside her.
She caught herself studying her reflection as she brushed her hair. The pale scarf lay ready on the dresser.
Three days of the thirty were gone.
She found Daniel’s contact information in the file and sat with the number in front of her until the office clock struck ten.
When he answered, his voice changed as soon as she identified herself.
“Is there a problem, Your Honor?”
“No. I’d like to speak with Nora, if you’re comfortable with that.”
A hand covered the receiver. Evelyn heard a muffled exchange, then a bright voice, much closer to the phone.
“Hello, Your Judgeship.”
Evelyn smiled despite herself. “You’ve promoted me.”
“Did you have breakfast?”
“I did. Nora, I’m calling because we haven’t discussed what you intend to do.”
“We have to get to know each other.”
“Do we?”
“Of course. You’re still somebody I only met at court.”
“Daddy can bring me to the pond tomorrow,” Nora said. “Will you come when the big clock says three?”
Evelyn drew a line through her afternoon conference.
“I’ve put you in my calendar.”
“And wear regular clothes. No black judge thing.”
“A robe.”
“That. And leave the face that goes with it.”
Evelyn laughed once, unexpectedly, into the quiet office.
“I’ll do my best.”
At three the following afternoon, she reached the pond in a charcoal skirt she hadn’t worn since before the collision. She had chosen lipstick, then wiped it off, then applied a little again.
A light coat covered her shoulders. The air still held an April chill, but sunlight warmed the path beside the water.
Daniel stood when he saw her. Nora was already hurrying over, carrying a container of rolled oats.
“We saved some.” She placed a scoop in Evelyn’s hand. “The bossy one gets too much, so don’t let him fool you.”
Evelyn glanced at Daniel, who gave an apologetic half smile.
Nora pointed at a mallard approaching with considerable confidence.
“That’s Captain Pickle. He thinks he owns the bank.”
“What’s his authority?” Evelyn asked.
“He’s loud.”
“An unfortunately common qualification.”
Daniel laughed, then seemed startled that he had.
For nearly an hour, Nora supplied histories for the ducks. One had lost his spectacles. Another was visiting his cousins but refused to admit he couldn’t find their pond. Evelyn contributed a troublesome aunt for a particularly disapproving female.
When the mallard investigated the toe of her shoe, Nora scolded him for eating evidence. Evelyn laughed so hard she had to set down the oats.
Afterward, Nora leaned against the empty end of the bench near her chair.
“What did you do before?”
“Before what?”
“Before your legs got hurt. When you weren’t being a judge.”
Evelyn watched a duck draw a narrow wake across the water.
“I danced.”
Daniel, sitting a little apart, went still.
“Like a ballerina?” Nora asked.
“When I was young, yes. Later, mostly in my living room. Records on the turntable, curtains closed.”
“Why closed?”
“I didn’t need an audience.”
“Do you miss it?”
Evelyn traced the seam of her skirt.
“Very much.”
Nora came to stand in front of her and offered a hand.
“Then let’s.”
For the first time that afternoon, Evelyn’s voice sharpened.
“You know I can’t get up.”
Nora lowered her hand but didn’t move away.
“I wasn’t asking you to.”
She planted her boots together. Then she lifted her elbows, turning her wrists with extravagant care. She tipped one shoulder, then the other, making a slow, solemn performance of remaining in place.
“My feet aren’t doing any of it,” she pointed out.
Evelyn looked at Daniel. He spread his hands, as uncertain as she was.
Nora began to hum.
Evelyn raised an arm. The movement felt foolish at first, performed on a public path with a man on a bench watching. Then Nora changed direction, and Evelyn followed without thinking.
A remembered waltz supplied what the humming lacked. Tchaikovsky, from a record she had nearly worn smooth as a young woman.
She extended her fingers, softened her elbow, and turned her head. Her shoulders moved beneath the coat. For several measures she forgot to check whether anyone else had come down the path.
Nora smiled at her without speaking.
Tears reached Evelyn’s cheeks. She kept moving until the tune in her head came to its ending.
“Oh,” she said, lowering her hands.
Nora stepped close. “Was that good?”
Evelyn nodded because she couldn’t yet answer.
The child rested both palms on her knees. Evelyn could see the touch but not feel it.
“They’re waiting,” Nora said.
Evelyn looked down at her. “You keep saying that as though you know.”
“Everything got frightened when the car hit you. Even after the hurting was done.”
“The hurting wasn’t done.”
Nora’s face grew serious.
“Then we’ll keep helping.”
Evelyn pressed a folded tissue beneath her eyes.
“I felt something when we moved. Not in my legs.”
“I know.” Nora patted one knee. “We started somewhere else.”
“We still have a deadline.”
“Twenty-six days. You can come tomorrow.”
Evelyn glanced toward Daniel. His expression carried gratitude and worry in equal measure.
“All right,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
She took the longer paved loop away from the pond. At the bend, she lifted a hand to them. Nora waved with both arms.
Back at the apartment, Daniel put water on for noodles. Nora spread crayons across the table and began drawing an enormous garden, with more purple than seemed possible in any garden he had seen.
He had just tipped the noodles into a colander when the phone rang.
Alma’s voice was high and breathless.
“Daniel, listen to me. You need to come to the hospital.”
He set the colander down inside the sink.
“Nora’s here. What’s happened?”
“It’s Evelyn Sutter. Her chair went off the edge of the path near the pond. One of the little wheels sank in that wet ground.”
Daniel gripped the counter.
“Is she hurt?”
“She struck her head against the stone edging. They’ve taken her in an ambulance. She hasn’t woken up…”
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇