Chapter 13: Three Rules

He did not ask me for anything else.

That was the first thing I noticed.

He sat on the running board with his hand still over his mouth, and he waited for me to say what came next.

"Get up," I said. "You'll freeze."

"I'm all right."

"You are not all right. You've been sleeping in that truck since Friday."

He looked up at me.

"Who told you?"

"Your mother."

"She knows?"

"She knows a lot of things this morning."

He got to his feet slowly, one hand on the door, stiff from the night.

I walked back up the gravel, and I did not look to see if he followed.

He followed.

I put him at the kitchen table, in my grandmother's chair, under the window.

Margit's rye was still on the oilcloth in its dish towel, and I cut him two slices and set them in front of him.

He ate both slices, slowly, and did not ask for more.

I stood at the stove with my arms crossed and watched the light come up on the lake.

My hands wanted to shake, so I held them still against my ribs.

"Here is how this works," I said.

He put the bread down.

"One. You sleep in the truck. Not in the cabin, not on the porch, not on the couch. At the end of the road, where you've been sleeping anyway."

"Yes."

"Two. You don't touch me. Not my hand, not my elbow, not my coat on my shoulders."

His jaw tightened, and then he nodded.

"Yes."

"Three. You answer every question I ask. True or not, I want it out loud, and I'll decide what to do with it."

"True or not?"

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