“Well, well,” came the amused snort. Four Eyes, just sitting up in bed, turned his eyes to look at his best friend leaning against the footboard of Bouncer’s bunk.
“Hey.” It seemed perfectly natural to see him there – not at all in conflict with the fact that Bastian had died in an alley in Queens eight and a half months before.
“Yer a mess,” Bastian grinned.
So he was. He quirked a smile back. There was one thing he needed to say before his friend left, or he woke up, or whatever. “I’m sorry.”
“Fergotten.”
He breathed in deeply. “No.” He paused. “It ain’t.”
“We covered da part about ya bein’ scum awhile back as I recall,” Bastian replied, eyebrow raised.
Four Eyes laughed aloud and actually looked at him for the first time. “Prob’ly still drawin’ da ladies,” he kidded. “An’ I look like da one dat’s been dead eight months.” What an odd thing to say – but it didn’t seem that way. He paused. “Am I fin’ly goin’ crazy?”
“Ya mean it’s taken ya dis long?” Bastian’s eyes were wide in mock disbelief. “Fooled me.”
“Go ta hell.”
“Naw, dey don’t know how ta party.” Four Eyes laughed again.
“Aw right, so whaddaya doin’ heah?” he asked. “Come ta haunt me, ease me conscience, tell me I’se been a bad boy, what?”
“Yer full a’ shit,” Bastian laughed back. “Naw, I t’ought I’d drop in an’ see how ya’s doin’.”
At that moment, a new thought stole out of his subconscious. “Right.”
“So,” he swung his legs down. “What’s new? What’s been happenin’? Got yaself a goil, yet?”
He couldn’t help his face flaming. Bastian grinned. “Really? Tell me about ‘er!”
“Nothin’ ta tell,” he muttered, looking away.
“Nothin’?”
Four Eyes stared over his shoulder. “Ya don’t wanna heah about it.”
Bastian rolled his eyes. “Why else am I askin’? Who’s da goil? What’s ‘er name?”
He swallowed. “Ruby.”
Bastian blinked. He blinked again. “Ruby?” It was surprise, not accusation. “Like, Ruby Gallagher?”
Four Eyes closed his own eyes. “Yeah.”
“Oh.” Bastian nodded. “Oh,” he repeated.
Four Eyes cursed himself. “Ya didn’t wanna heah about it.”
Bastian scratched his head, normal ebullience gone. “Naw, I do wanna heah about it. I jus’ wasn’t expectin’ dat ta be da answer.” He shrugged.
Four Eyes shrugged also. “Well, den I don’t know what ta say,” he mumbled.
Bastian was silent, eyeing him. “‘Ow is she?”
He took a deep breath. “I t’ink – she’s good.”
His best friend nodded. “Dat’s good.” Silence, once more. “Ya treatin’ ‘er aw right?”
Four Eyes flinched. “Tryin’.” An’ failin’ most a’ da time.
Another nod. Bastian shrugged with a slight laugh. “‘Ow’s dat fer irony, huh?” There was no answer to that. At last, Bastian shrugged again, running a hand through his hair. “Well, aw right den.” He looked almost stunned, and Four Eyes flinched again. “Can’t say I saw dat one comin’.”
“Me neidda.” He met his best friend’s eyes, half in plea for forgiveness.
Bastian shrugged again, still studying him. “Ya make ‘er happy?” he asked weakly.
He flushed. “I t’ink so.”
“Aw right,” Bastian nodded, then with a bit more confidence, “Aw right.” He paused. “She – ah – she in love wit ya?”
Now very red, very quietly Four Eyes answered, “Yeah.”
Stillness. Bastian scratched his nose, watching him out of the corner of one eye. “She say so?”
Four Eyes gave a bare nod. I’m sorry. But he wasn’t. Not for Ruby. He could never be sorry for Ruby.
Bastian echoed his nod. “Oh.” He nodded again. “Must mean it den.” Silence stretched out and made itself at home. Finally, Bastian punched his shoulder, violating several laws of physics. “Lucky devil, geez.”
“I know,” Four Eyes released a sigh, and Bastian frowned.
“What? Ya can’t tell me it ain’t a good thing. Sheesh, ya know how hard I tried?!”
He hadn’t meant that at all! Four Eyes looked at him, startled. “It’s da best t’ing dat evah – I nevah-” He closed his mouth, then opened it again. “She’s wonderful.” He looked away.
Bastian nodded. “Yeah.” Four Eyes flushed further. I’m sorry. “Well, good fer you,” he said, subdued, but sincere. “Ya desoive some happiness afta everythin’.”
Four Eyes blinked several times and stared at him. For what?! But the dream or visitation or whatever it was was fading away.
“Don’t dat jus’ beat all . . .”
Season was not in the boys’ bunkroom. That was something of a relief, since it left Ruby free to inquire after Four Eyes without his attentions. She made a mental note to find him a girl, and asked Corks where she could find Four Eyes.
The elder of the twins grinned. “Himself is upstairs,” he replied, mixing Irish brogue and New York slang cheerfully and quite incorrectly. “I’ll be chasin’ da odders away if ye likes.”
Four Eyes heard the attic door open and close, and listened absently. Not Shoe’s near-silent paws, nor the almost tangible thundercloud that surrounded Sandy wherever the boy went. Not Splints come to draw him out, nor one of the other boys fleeing the bunkroom for the sanctuary of the attic, nor Brendan bent on hunting up some forgotten article among the boxes and bags. In fact, he identified her by other senses than hearing – what, exactly, he would have been hard put to say. “Hey,” he said turning his head and descending the stairs to meet her. “Da stairs’re safe, but sometimes people leave stuff on ‘em. An’ it’s dark,” lamely, he stated the obvious. Dark and hot, a classic mid-July night.
“That it is,” Ruby replied wickedly.
He blushed, though she couldn’t see it. “Dere’s a window upstairs,” he said with an equally invisible gesture. “Moon’s out.”
He could hear the smile, even if he couldn’t see it. “Wanna show me?”
In reply, Four Eyes took her hand and led her up. He waved around vaguely and unhelpfully, then sat on a dusty, leather-bound chest the property of Brendan’s dead wife Rachel. Ruby forbore to explore and sat on his knee, putting her arms around his neck. “I keep missin’ ya.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s aw right.” Ruby smiled, then kissed his nose. “Not yer fault.” She curled up against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Ya doin’ aw right?”
Four Eyes shrugged slightly, thinking of his dream. “I was broodin’. I’m aw right.”
She smoothed his hair. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’ in particular.” It wasn’t a conscious lie. He meant it when he said it. “Nothin’ more dan usual,” he added self-deprecatingly.
Ruby kissed his cheek. “Do ya wanna talk about it?”
“Nevah seems ta be much ta tawk about,” he replied lamely.
She nodded. “I’m heah though, if dere is.”
He hugged her gratefully. “T’anks.”
She squeezed back. “Yer welcome. I love you.”
“I love you.”
They spent several minutes in silent contentment. “Got a letter from Faith,” Ruby murmured eventually. “She sends her love. Her great aunt is doin’ betta.”
“Dat’s good.”
Ruby nodded, then laughed. Four Eyes smiled to himself at the sound. “She’s engaged.”
“She is?” Faith Montgomery didn’t date. She was known for it.
She nodded again. “Da doctor dat was takin’ care of her aunt. Go figger, huh? Who woulda t’ought?”
Listening to her laughter, Four Eyes was struck yet again with the knowledge of how lucky he was. Luck? It must be more than that. He hugged her tightly.
Ruby hugged him back. “Dat was me gossip fer da day.” Then she paused. “Aunt Miranda died.”
Four Eyes was quiet. Short, merry and almost round, ‘Aunt Miranda’ was – had been, he corrected himself – one of Bastian’s two aunts. Ruth, the remaining aunt was quite her opposite. It had been years since he’d seen either of them; they were, after all, Bastian’s family, not his, still . . . “Don’t know what dey – she – t’inks a’ me anymore,” he whispered. However much or little they knew of Brooklyn they must have wondered why they no longer heard of him.
Ruby kissed his forehead. “I don’t think dey ever knew any of it. Really.” Four Eyes blinked and nodded. She curled closer to him. “I feel sorry for Ruth.”
He nodded again. Alone in that house . . . He ought to visit her. They were Bastian’s family.
Bastian had been his family. You . . . Four Eyes sighed and dropped his face onto Ruby’s shoulder. “Gonna kill me . . .”
“What?” Ruby lifted his head. “Four Eyes, what’s wrong?”
He hugged her, shaking his head. “Me conscience,” he explained. “Is gonna kill me.” He groped for words for a moment and completed quietly, “I miss ‘im.” He shouldn’t be saying this to her! Who else? “I’m awright,” he said quickly.
She was crying. She tried to hide it, but he could tell all the same. “Oh, hon. I know. I miss him too. But . . . it wasn’t yer fault. Ya hafta let it go.”
He blinked. He would never be able to answer that. “I’m aw right,” he repeated, then kissed her to prove it. He was all right. He would always be better with her than alone with himself. “I love you.” It was only half of what he felt, but the best words would always be a pale reflection.
“I love you too.” Then she removed his glasses and proceeded to turn the conversation in other directions.
Four Eyes was nervous. Well, he noted, raising an inner eyebrow at himself, dat’s unusual. Ruby reached for the door knocker and looked back, squeezing his hand before knocking.
Aunt Ruth, when she opened the door, looked much as he remembered her, thin, straight-backed and cold. She had aged more than three years could fully account for, however, and she was dressed entirely in the black of mourning. After a moment’s thin-lipped study of the two, she nodded. “Margaret. William. Come in.” As Four Eyes glanced at Ruby, Ruth stepped back to let them pass.
Ruby released his hand and hugged her impulsively. “I’m so sorry.”
Ruth remained as stiff as a lamp post. “Old age, Margaret,” she replied coolly. She looked over Four Eyes, still in the doorway, but didn’t voice her thoughts. Abruptly, she turned and headed for the kitchen.
Four Eyes drew a deep breath while she was gone, feeling his poker face slip into place. Ruby squeezed his hand, then looked up as Ruth returned with a tea tray and herded them into the parlor.
“It was good of you both to come,” Ruth said, handing out tea with painful correctness.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Four Eyes knew, there was a store of the appropriate social pleasantries including the reply for this exact moment. Unfortunately, he had no idea where in the clutter of memories to find it. Ruby seemed equally at a loss.
Ruth gave them an icy look. “Both of you, sit. Raised in barns, obviously.”
“Naw,” Four Eyes heard himself answer. “Brooklyn. Barns’d be more civilized.”
Ruth gazed at him for a moment. Her lips twitched. Ruby’s eyes had gone wide. ‘Memba da time I put a snake in Aunt Ruth’s petticoat drawer? He was only imagining Bastian’s voice, Four Eyes knew, but he had to take a firm grip on his poker face all the same. The tension was threatening to dissolve into either laughter or tears. Either would most likely lead to the other, and would be equally humiliating.
“Tea, William?” Aunt Ruth asked, holding out a cup. She glanced at Ruby. “Don’t look so shocked, Margaret, he’s perfectly right.”
“Whaddaya t’ink?”
“I t’ink I don’t wanna play poker against yer Aunt Ruth.”
“How are you children getting on?” she asked at their continued silence.
“Fine?” Ruby replied weakly.
“Fine,” Four Eyes echoed. It seemed the only safe thing to say.
Eyeing them both, Ruth nodded. Gazing at Four Eyes over her teacup, she said, “Margaret, there’s coffee cake in the kitchen. Go fetch it, please.”
Ruby blinked, looking worriedly at Four Eyes. “Umm. Yes, ma’am.”
He missed her immediately. “Ma’am?” he asked. Ruth set down her teacup and studied him, folding her hands. The scrutiny lasted far longer than seemed necessary, but he bore it without wriggling – outwardly, that is.
Ruth pursed her lips. “You and Margaret are a couple now?”
He blushed slightly. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he reddened further. Ruby had, as he well knew, been Bastian’s girl.
“She’s a good girl,” Ruth nodded. Four Eyes nodded also, agreeing whole-heartedly, but waited. She seemed to be preparing her thoughts. “Sebastian never made her happy.”
Four Eyes flinched, turning from flushed to pale. It wasn’t that he didn’t know it. He knew, there was no need for him to hear it.
“Thus said,” Ruth continued, after pausing to note his reaction, “you do.”
“He-” Four Eyes felt forced to say something, but he couldn’t manage more than that one word.
Ruth raised a hand. “Is gone. And you are not. Live. Because he can’t. But don’t blame yourself for being alive.” She folded her hands, finished. Doze hadn’t put it quite that baldly. Or perhaps he simply hadn’t expected it from Aunt Ruth.
“More to it dan dat,” he whispered.
Ruby returned with the coffee cake, wincing at the tension, and he looked at her gratefully.
Aunt Ruth took a slice, but laid it aside. “Is there?” she said, in a tone not to be argued with.
Four Eyes looked at the cake, at the upholstery of the chairs, at the carpet, at the walls, at Ruby, at Ruth, feeling as trapped as if the parlor doors had been locked on him. This visit had been a bad idea. She was trying, in her ornery way, to comfort him, but she hadn’t the least idea of what he’d done. An’ I don’t want ‘er ta know. His very presence there was an offense. He wanted to excuse himself and get as far away as possible before she learned the truth.
Ruth waved a hand. “Plain speech is practiced here, young man. You have something to say; do say it.”
Bluntly, he replied to a point on the wallpaper, “I’m a coward if I say it an’ worse if I don’t.” A coward if he left and an imposter if he stayed. She knew him as Bastian’s old friend. He probably knew this house better than anyone who hadn’t lived there, but he wasn’t the same person . . .
Ruth pursed her lips. “So say it then.”
To his right, Ruby was biting her lip, face showing how clearly she blamed herself for the current situation. To his left, Ruth – waited – visibly.
Ruby’s expression only added to his guilt. “I don’t t’ink ya want me in yer house,” slipped out before he could stop it. Flushing darkly, he rephrased his words quickly. “I t’ink too well a’ ya.” That wasn’t right, either. True, but not right. “T’ank you,” he stammered, then, rising, “I t’ink I should go.”
“Sit,” Ruth ordered.
He sat.
She studied him. “I don’t know what happened. Margaret doesn’t like to talk about it. However, from what I gathered, you feel responsible for what happened to Sebastian. You were not. You do yourself as well as him a disservice by continuing to think so.”
His face grew redder with every word. With a calm that surprised even him, he replied, “He died t’inkin’ I was scum. He was right. An’ fer dat I am responsible.” The composure cracked just as he finished. Silently, he begged to be allowed to leave before she simply threw him out.
“He didn’t!” Ruby denied immediately. “You know that!”
“Ruby-” he flinched.
Ruth watched them. “Did God grant you with the ability to read minds, child?”
He flinched again. “No,” he said quietly. “I tawked ta ‘im.”
She frowned. Ruby was crying. He was scum. “I should go,” he repeated desperately.
“Sit down, young man.”
He remained sitting. Let me go . . . he begged silently. She deserved better. Either of them. Both of them.
“Are you religious, William?” Four Eyes looked at her, unable to frame an answer. Ruth folded her hands and enunciated. “Do you believe that those who are deceased can see us?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. He couldn’t argue anymore. He couldn’t even think.
“Well, I do,” she replied in a clipped voice. “Think about that, please.”
Ruby stood up. “We should – um – we should go.”
Ruth stood as well. “Thank you both for coming.”
“I’ll see you on Saturday, Miss Ruth,” Ruby said dashing away tears. She grabbed Four Eyes’ hand. He closed his eyes and followed her lead.
Air! He took a gulp of it and then sagged against the wall of the house. Ruby was crying, but he couldn’t find the strength to comfort her. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed at the same time.
“Ya didn’t-” He cursed weakly.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby repeated, sitting down on the steps.
He sagged down next to her. “Ya ain’t done nothin’ ta be sorry for.”
She glared at him. “I brought you here, didn’t I?” She burst into tears again.
“I came,” he replied, but even that was beside the point. He considered it as Ruby stood, trying without success to control her tears. It was his own conscience, as he’d told her before, and he what right had he to wish away that?
Ruby put her arms around him, and in return, he hugged her to him like a lifeline. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured again.
“Nobody hoits me, but me,” he pleaded for her understanding. She shook her head. They ought to go somewhere beside this doorstep, but Four Eyes couldn’t imagine where. “I ain’t fit ta see nobody right now.” He couldn’t speak without tears, let alone hold a coherent conversation. The very thought of returning to the Bronx to face the boys in this state made him sick.
Ruby stiffened, then dropped her arms and stepped back. Four Eyes opened his eyes quickly to see her nodding, still fighting tears. He’d hurt her. “I meant – not – home-” he faltered. Angry with himself, he closed his eyes again. “Maybe I should be alone.” He deserved to be alone.
There was silence, and he thought she’d left, then her arms encircled him again. “Too bad. I t’ink yer stuck wit me.” Silence for a time. “Do ya wanna talk about it?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t talk about it. He didn’t know where to begin.
She nodded. “Okay. That’s all right.” She smoothed his hair. “Do you wanna go somewhere quiet?”
He nodded, sighed and whispered, “Someday, I’m gonna deserve you.”
Ruby frowned. “No, Four Eyes, look at me.” He opened his eyes. She knelt on the step below him. “You have got to stop thinkin’ like that. You already do deserve me. I wouldn’t love you so much if you didn’t, aw right?”
“Agree ta disagree.” He avoided her eyes.
“No,” Ruby said firmly. “Dere’s no disagreein’ dere. By thinkin’ so badly of yaself, yer insultin’ me.” She took his hands. “You are not scum, ya never were scum, an’ ya never could be scum if ya tried. Why can’t you even attempt ta believe dat?”
She might almost have convinced him. He closed his eyes again, to explain what he’d realized weeks before. “Dere’s people dat spend deir whole lives tryin’ ta help odder people. Den dere’s people who spend deir lives tryin’ ta hoit people.” Ruby nodded, and he continued, relieved that she didn’t try to interrupt. “Dere’s anudda kind dat jus’ don’t care – don’t consider nobody important enough even ta hoit.” He swallowed with difficulty. “Dat’s what I did. I didn’t say it, but I made it – not matter.” He paused, then said in sweeping understatement, “It mattered.”
Ruby rubbed his hand. “Yeah it mattered, an’ ya know dat now. Ya can’t change da past. At least ya learned somethin’. Ev’rybody makes mistakes, Four Eyes.”
But . . . There was a reply to that, if only he could find it. Da punishment fer ignorance is dat it don’t last, he quoted silently.
She sighed at his silence and looked away. Four Eyes bit his lip, looking at her. “Ruby?” he ventured.
“Yeah?” She touched his face.
How to say it? “I ain’t da one ta be tawkin’,” he began, “but if I could t’ink anythin’ was woith it . . .” he trailed off.
Ruby tilted her head, lost.
Recognizing her confusion he tried again. “I have trouble imaginin’ how hell could be woise dan somet’ings dat . . . but . . . ya’d be woith it.”
She smiled a bit, still lost. “I love you.”
Oh, well. “I love you too.” That mattered far more.
“Four Eyes, what are ya tryin’ ta say?”
How . . . ? He drew a deep breath. “I don’t t’ink I could see anythin’ woise in hell dan in da past t’ree yeahs, or anythin’ better in heaven dan you. An’ I shouldn’t say it, but fer you-” He looked at her. “Yer woith it.”
Four Eyes knocked on the door, trying with only partial success to control his nervousness. Ruby was not with him, this time. He hadn’t told her he planned to come. Ruth answered the door and nodded slightly. “William.” She waved him inside.
He entered. “Afternoon, Ma’am.”
“And to you.” She turned, and he followed her to the kitchen where she had obviously been in the middle of polishing the silver. “What can I do for you?”
For a moment, he couldn’t find words. Ruth raised her eyebrows. “Cat got your tongue, child?”
He reddened. “I t’ought ya might be able ta use some help wit t’ings . . . aroun’ da house – or somethin’,” he completed lamely.
She paused in her polishing to look at him, then resumed working, forcing him to wait several uncomfortable minutes before she spoke. “My understanding was that I shouldn’t want you in my house.”
Four Eyes turned first red, then white. He knew what she meant, but the words still cut him.
Polishing a fork, she looked at him. “Those were your own words, as I seem to recall, William.”
They were. He opened and closed his mouth several times. “I t’ought I could help somehow,” he said quietly. To make amends – for the scene of the previous week, if nothing else.
Ruth set down the fork and picked up a spoon. “Two of the legs on the dining room table are loose.”
He looked at her, then nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Four Eyes tapped on the wall next to the bunkroom window of the Harlem Newsgirls’ Lodging House, wondering idly if it was less than stiflingly hot anywhere in the city. Ruby waved him inside with one hand, toweling wet hair with the other. “Heya, hon, c’mon in.”
“Hey.” He climbed inside, and she paused in drying her hair to kiss him hello. “How are ya?”
“Okay.” He kissed her back. “How about you?”
“I’m all right,” she smiled between kisses. “Hot, ain’t it?”
He kissed her again, and noted, flushing, that this was not the way to cool down. “Yeah.”
Ruby broke the kiss, smoothed the sweaty hair off his forehead and pulled him over to sit. “So whatcha up to?” she asked, after making herself comfortable on his knee.
For some reason, he didn’t want to tell her about visiting Aunt Ruth’s. “Not much.”
Ruby tucked her wet hair behind her ears. “No?” He shrugged, and she tipped her head to one side in concern. “Everything aw right?”
“Yeah.” And that, for once, was true. He kissed her, just to celebrate, when he realized it. “I love you.”
“I know,” she grinned. “I love you too.” Then, more seriously, “more than anythin’.”
He swallowed hard, then kissed her.
He couldn’t actually hear what they were saying. He couldn’t seem to remember what was happening, except that it was very, very wrong.
Stop!
He followed just behind them. What were they saying? He couldn’t even catch a sense of it. Were they happy or angry or sad? Not serious. The thought crept into his consciousness, but he simply knew that whatever he was saying, it could not possibly be serious.
What’s going on?
This is wrong.
But what was wrong?
They turned a corner. A moment later, he turned it as well. The quiet talking continued. It was wrong.
“Stop it.”
That was enough. There was a roaring and darkness and in the sensory chaos of the next few moments, he did.
Bastian looked at him. He looked at his hands. “Fool me twice . . .” He looked up.
Luke smiled.
He woke up sweating. I’m sorry! But that dream was gone. It had been gone for weeks . . . I’m sorry!
“Ya aw right?” Four Eyes finished drying his hair, dropped the towel and looked at Splints. Splints waited. “I’m aw right,” he said finally.
Unconvinced, Dunromin continued to watch him.
“Doze give ya da job a’ watch-doggin’ me?” Four Eyes asked with a half-smile. “I am. Aw right.”
“If yer shoa,” Splints said finally.
“I’m sorry.”
“Fergotten.”
So why am I still gettin’ dreams about yer death? It was only a dream anyway, no more real than a conversation with a grave on an early August morning. It had occurred to him that in reality, he didn’t know what happened that night. He knew what Dove – or some Brooklynite – had drawn out of a hysterical Ruby and then reported. He wouldn’t even consider asking her what had happened.
“I’m helpin’ Aunt Ruth. She – ah – she’s lonely.” He paused. “I t’ought I might – I dunno – breakin’ even’s a bit outta me reach.” He sighed. I’se said I’m sorry a few too many times for it ta count. An’ I can’t say fergotten or fergiven cuz I’d be makin’ it not matter again. He shook his head, finally. “I don’t know.”
Ruth was in the parlor, knitting, when Four Eyes arrived in Morningside Heights that afternoon. “William,” she nodded to his greeting.
He nodded back, shifting awkwardly.
“And how are you today?”
How was he . . . ?
Stop it.
Fool me twice . . .
Ruth waited.
Four Eyes shook himself. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” She nodded again, still knitting. It looked like a blue scarf. “What can I do for you today?”
He flushed. “I should be askin’ dat.” He paused and added, “How are ya?”
Ruth laid down her knitting for the first time and just looked at him for a moment. He tried not to squirm under her gaze. “I’m well, thank you for asking, William,” she said at last, picking up her knitting again.
Four Eyes nodded, and waited. The knitting needles clicked. He tried not to fidget.
“One of the shutters has come loose again,” Ruth said, eventually. “You know where the toolbox is.”
He nodded again, relieved to have something to do.
“Well, don’t just stand there, William.”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
He enjoyed helping Ruth. It wasn’t just that the household jobs she set him allowed him to concentrate on something blessedly uncomplicated for a few hours at a time, though he was grateful for that. He liked her.
Fixing the shutter didn’t take very long, and he gave in to the temptation to sit and brood for a few minutes when he was done. Not for long.
Ruth nodded to him when he was finished. “Is the shutter fixed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Excellent.” She nodded at the table, indicating that he sit down.
He sat, blinking a bit, as she served up a bowl of soup. “T’ank you,” he said, uncomfortably.
“Well, are you goint to stare at it all day?” she replied caustically.
He turned red. “No, ma’am.”
Well, then? she said without words. He shook himself and picked up his spoon to eat. Nodding, then, she sat down across from him with a cup of tea.
Stay tuned! More to come!
