Chapter 13: Three Under One Roof

Tom Halvorsen followed Astrid and me out to the wood shed before he had even taken his boots off the porch mat.

The four dogs rose out of the straw in a heap, and Pip reached him first.

"That's a good-looking pup," Tom said, and Pip sat on his boot as if he had paid for it.

He crouched and ran his hands down Moose's legs, then checked each pad the way Mae must have taught him.

"Who taught you that?" Astrid asked.

"A woman who also taught me I steered like a drunk moose."

Then he saw the orange harness on Moose's shoulders, and his hands stopped.

The white stitching read MAE across the collar, a little frayed at the corners.

"She sewed her name in everything," Tom said quietly. "Even the dish towels."

"It fits him," I said.

"It fits him perfectly." He cleared his throat and stood up fast. "Sorry. It's been ten years."

Astrid said nothing, but she put one hand on Moose's head, and she left it there.

Back in the cabin, the day went by with three of us trying to take up the space of two.

Tom had walked in with a tin of ginger cookies his wife had baked for the station.

He set it on the table.

Astrid poured him coffee in a white mug without being asked.

I noticed that she poured mine in the blue one, and that she did not look at Tom while she did it.

He noticed too, and he looked at his coffee for a long moment.

"I'll sleep by the door," he said. "I've slept in worse than a cabin floor."

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