Part 3
Evelyn set the cloth down without wringing it.
“There you are,” she said.
Daniel looked at her, but she was watching him rather than Tess.
He tried to answer. Nothing came. He let his fingers rest beneath the dog’s jaw until Evelyn laid a blanket over his shoulders and told him she would watch for a while.
When he woke, the fire had settled into a steady red bed and daylight lay across the floor. His neck hurt. One leg had gone numb beneath him.
Otis sneezed.
Daniel opened his eyes in time to see the puppy attempt to climb over Finn, lose his footing, and land sideways against Tess. Finn objected with a squeak and shoved back with both front paws.
Their mother raised her head. She looked tired enough to resent every bit of it.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Daniel whispered.
Otis sneezed again.
Tess’s tail brushed the rug once.
Evelyn had gone home after the sky began to lighten, leaving instructions on the table in her square handwriting. Daniel read them twice, fed the fire, and put broth on to warm.
At the sink, he reached automatically for his usual cup. His hand stopped beneath the shelf.
He took down Claire’s green mug.
There was dust around the rim. He washed it carefully, turning the cracked handle away from the water pressure, and filled it with coffee. He set it across from his own place at the table.
For a while, he stood with his hand on the chair back. Then a small growl from the hearth made him turn.
Otis had found a loose strand at the edge of the rug. Finn was helping, though neither appeared to know what victory would require. When Finn tried to bark at the wood basket, the sound surprised him enough that he toppled backward.
Daniel laughed.
Tess looked straight at him.
“What?” he said. “You saw it.”
She lowered her chin, leaving him to defend himself against the puppies.
Evelyn returned around noon with soup and a round loaf wrapped in a towel. Her boots were wet, her cheeks red, and her expression changed only after she saw Tess raise her head.
“Oh, good,” she said. “Still giving orders.”
“Mostly with her eyebrows.”
“She’s sensible. Saves energy.”
Daniel took the pot from her and set it on the stove. Evelyn inspected the bowls, the bedding, and finally him.
“You need sleep.”
“I slept.”
“On the floor. That’s a maneuver, not a night’s rest.”
He pulled out a chair for her. “You’re eating before you start assigning more improvements.”
“That’s almost hospitality.”
Under the table, Otis and Finn resumed their campaign against the rug.
The next days required patience rather than emergency. Tess stood for only a few seconds at first. Then she made it to the water bowl without Daniel steadying her. Her appetite returned in cautious stages, and the medicine schedule stayed pinned beside the stove.
He brushed her in the evenings, working loose the remaining mats and stopping whenever he reached the old scar at her shoulder. She accepted the brush with a grave expression, checking on the puppies after every few strokes.
Otis followed Daniel’s boots until he wore himself out. Once, Daniel found him asleep with his chin resting inside a slipper. Finn stayed closer to Tess, studying the room before committing himself to it. He could nevertheless cross the kitchen remarkably fast when Evelyn dropped a piece of bread.
Curtains Daniel had left shut for two winters began opening each morning. He swept because there were paws carrying ash away from the hearth. He cooked because Evelyn noticed if he didn’t. The mail moved off the table, one opened envelope at a time.
On an afternoon when wet snow began sliding from the roof, he set a ladder beneath the kitchen eaves and worked on a leak he’d ignored since autumn. Evelyn stood below with a tin of nails.
“Don’t put that piece back,” she called.
“It’ll fit.”
“It’ll leak.”
“I already cut it.”
“Then you’ve had practice. Cut another.”
Daniel looked down. She held up a sound board she’d pulled from the stack.
“You enjoy this?” he asked.
“Immensely.”
He climbed down for the better piece.
Afterward, they drank coffee near the hearth. Tess slept while the puppies rearranged themselves against her belly. Evelyn spoke about Nathan as a boy who brought injured animals home and expected his mother to know what they ate.
“A bird with one wing dragging. A kitten that bit through a towel. Once, an opossum in a box that he assured me was perfectly friendly.”
“Was it?”
“It expressed a different opinion.”
Daniel smiled into his cup.
“Claire collected people,” he said.
Evelyn waited.
“The ones nobody wanted to sit next to. The ones who made everything difficult.” He ran his thumb over a scratch in the cup’s glaze. “She was very patient with difficult.”
Evelyn stirred her coffee, though she hadn’t put anything in it.
After a while, she said, “Nathan’s jokes were terrible. I miss having to pretend otherwise.”
They finished their coffee without hurrying.
That evening, after she left, Daniel opened the little wooden box on the mantel. Claire’s harmonica lay inside beside a photograph taken one summer before the accident. In the picture, she was turning toward him, hair loose across one cheek, already laughing at something he could no longer remember.
He had left the instrument untouched since the funeral.
Daniel held it for a long time before lifting it to his mouth. The first note failed. He lowered it, annoyed at himself, and heard Tess’s tail tap the floor behind him.
“All right,” he said.
He tried again.
The tune was one Claire used to hum at the sink. He played it badly at first, stopping once to swallow. Otis woke and tilted his head. Finn crawled onto Tess’s paw, apparently prepared to listen from there.
Daniel made it through to the last note. He lowered the harmonica into his lap and stayed beside the fire until the puppies were asleep again.
The knock came on a clear morning several days later.
Daniel was shaving at the kitchen window, using a small mirror propped against a jar. Otis had possession of an old sock. Finn refused to concede it.
Three hard knocks silenced them both.
Tess rose before Daniel put down the razor. Her body angled toward the door, and Finn backed beneath her chest.
A man stood on the porch in a dark green uniform, his hat dusted with snow shaken from the branches. He was in his mid-forties, lean, with a short beard and a weathered face that suggested long days outdoors. He held his identification where Daniel could read it: Vincent Cole, county wildlife officer.
Cole lowered the badge.
“A complaint came in about this property…”
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