Chapter 23: Who Asks

On the first warm Sunday in April, Tobias made pancakes in a T-shirt with the kitchen window open.

The snow had gone from the lake, and the pier stood in brown water with a heron on the end of it.

Joy sat on the counter with her feet swinging and a telescope across her knees.

It was the brass one from Christmas Eve.

She had gotten it back from under the tree at the gala, and it had not left her side since.

"Uncle Tobias, you're burning one," she said.

"I'm browning one."

"You say that every time."

"It's true every time."

I stood at the sink with my hands in the dishwater and watched him flip the batch.

He had been to Hartford twice since January.

He had voted his father's shares once, to hire a president the red tie liked.

Then he had come home and gone back to his rescue calls.

He still left at dawn some mornings, with the orange kit on the seat of his truck.

He was still in the gatehouse, and so were we.

Every first of the month I wrote a check for the rent and put it on his kitchen table.

Every first of the month he tore it in half and put the halves in the stove.

"Landlord," I'd say.

"Tenant," he'd say, and kiss me.

I dried my hands.

He had not asked me anything in two weeks.

He had not so much as hinted.

I knew why.

I had thought it through on the courthouse steps, and again at two in the morning with his arm over me.

He would never ask.

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