Chapter 12: The Back Step

I woke Abel with a hand on his shoulder.

"Your grandfather."

He was off the booth and into his jeans before he was properly awake.

He came through the swinging door with his shirt in his fist and his scalp creased from the vinyl.

"What happened? Is it the hip? Grandpa?"

"I'm fine," said Ansel. "Sit."

Abel looked at the blue tin, and at the cards, and at me in my quilt.

He sat very slowly on the stool beside the old man.

The storm outside had worn itself down to a thin, steady hiss.

"I'm going to say it once," Ansel said. "Don't interrupt. I'm too old to start twice."

He folded his hands on the steel, and I saw them stop trembling.

"Ruth died in September of ninety-eight," he said.

"In October I went to Winifred's kitchen door."

"I said, I'm free, and I'm sorry, and I'm fifty-eight, and I'm no good at this."

His voice was dry, and every word came out whole.

"She laughed at me. She said she'd have waited until I was dead."

"Then she said, come on Christmas Eve at four, and bring the good butter."

"What happened at four?" I whispered.

"The back step," Ansel said. "Of the Hall. Snow to the ankle."

"She had the roasting pans in her arms, and her glasses fogged, and she looked at me and said, Ansel Cushman, marry me."

"I said yes. I didn't think. I said, yes, Winnie, God, yes."

"I took the pans from her arms and put them on the step, and I held her face."

His voice cracked.

"That was the best minute of my life. We stood in the snow like two fools."

Abel had gone completely still.

"And then the cellar door opened," Ansel said.

"Barton," I said.

"He was thirty-three. He had just taken over the Hall books. He'd been in the cellar counting chairs." Ansel's mouth twisted. "He heard everything."

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