Chapter 6: Two Warnings

At two o'clock I carried an armload of kindling around the side of the woodshed and heard Casper's voice.

I stopped behind the stacked birch.

"Hell of a hand," Casper was saying.

"Dock railing," said Winston.

"Melina came back from her walk crying. You two have a fight?"

"I haven't seen her since the boathouse."

Casper is a big man with a red beard who sets bones for a living as an orthopedic nurse.

He was standing very close to Winston with a splitting maul in one hand.

"She gets emotional, Winston. Wedding stuff. She says things that aren't true when she's worked up."

"Does she."

"I'd hate for that to turn into a thing," Casper said, still smiling. "We're all family now. Almost."

Winston took off his glasses, wiped them on the hem of his jacket, and put them back on.

"I inspect structures for the city," he said. "I write down what I measure."

He pushed his glasses up.

"If I haven't measured it, it doesn't go in the report."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm very careful about what I report."

Casper's smile held for one more second.

Then he drove the maul into a log, and the log split in two.

"Good man," he said, and walked off whistling.

Winston stood very still.

When I stepped out from behind the birch, he looked at the kindling in my arms.

"Hello," he said. "Were you stacking?"

"Eavesdropping."

"Good. Someone should." He held out his unbandaged hand for the wood. "Nine months, and he calls us family."