They Laughed When I Left, So I Came Home the Town's Doctor novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: First Snow

Tuomas put down his fork very carefully.

"That's a good question, Helmi," he said.

"I know."

"The honest answer is that I'm your uncle. That's what I am. Your dad's name was Eero, and he's your dad, and nobody's taking that."

Helmi frowned.

"But," said Tuomas, "I'd like to be the one who shows up. For the rake, and the pumpkins, and the bridge things. If your mama says yes, and you two say yes."

Onni looked at his sister.

They had a way of conferring without speaking that I had never learned.

"Both," said Onni.

"Both what?"

"He can be an uncle and also show up," said Onni. "They're different things."

"Okay," said Helmi, and picked her toast back up. "Pass the jam, Uncle."

Tuomas passed the jam with a hand that wasn't steady.

My mother turned to the stove so that none of us would see her face.

That was the twenty-sixth of October.

Two weeks later, on the eighth of November, the first real snow came down over Marquette in the late afternoon.

I stood at the window of my mother's front room and watched it fall on the maple.

"He asked you," said my mother, behind me.

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