Page 4 of Kept By the Devoted Mountain Man
"Miss Tessa read three chapters," she says. "With voices. The fox has a funny voice."
"Yeah?"
The woman is standing when we come in. She's put the book on the returns shelf and has a canvas tote over one shoulder, clearly preparing to leave. Mid-twenties. Dark hair, a little wind-tangled. She's wearing a light blue dress that's slightly too nice for sitting on library floors, which means she didn't plan this.
Up close, though — I don't look up, but I notice anyway. The particular colour of her eyes. The afternoon light in her hair. There's a small smear of blue crayon on the inside of her wrist from sitting on the floor with the kids, and for some reason that detail is harder to set aside than anything else about her. Proof of what she's been doing. Proof she meant it.
I look at Nora.
"Beckett Hale." I shift Nora to my other hip. "Her uncle."
"Tessa Marlowe." She holds my look without flinching when I bring it back to her. "I'm visiting for the week. I used to — I teach. Back in Vancouver. I saw the volunteer sign and came in."
Visiting for the week.I file that immediately. One week. Today is Tuesday. She leaves by next Tuesday at the latest, probably sooner.
Good. Good.
"She read three chapters," Nora says again, in case I missed it the first time.
The corner of my mouth moves. I don't let it go anywhere. "Thank you," I say. "For sitting with her."
"She's easy to sit with."
I know she means it. I hold her look a beat too long before I make myself move. I pick up Nora's backpack from the hook by the door and we go.
In the truck, Nora talks continuously for eleven minutes. I know because I watch the clock.
Miss Tessa does the fox voice like this— she demonstrates, puffing up slightly, and it's so funny that I almost run a stop sign.Miss Tessa says Tommy Birch will probably get better eventually but she's not sure yet. Miss Tessa's bag has a small pin on it that's shaped like an open book with a tiny bird on top and Nora would like one exactly like it. Miss Tessa smells like something nice.
I drive. I listen. I don't say anything.
At home I start dinner, mac and cheese, because it's what Nora will reliably eat without negotiation, and I let her draw at the kitchen table while I cook. She's quiet now, bent over her paper with the focused silence that means she's in her head.
"Will Miss Tessa be there on Thursday?" she asks, without looking up.
"I don't know."
"She said the reading program is Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"Mm."
"So she might be."
I stir the pasta. "Maybe."
Nora draws for another minute. Her crayon goes back and forth, back and forth. "I hope she is," she says, very casually, in a way that is nothing but casual.
I put the food on the table and tell her to wash her hands. I stand at the sink and look out the window at the tree line and I press the heel of my hand against the edge of the counter until the thought goes somewhere I can manage.
Nora goes down late. She always does in summer because the light stays too long, the birds won't quit, and she has her father's stubborn streak in full. I sit on the edge of the bed in Jace's old room and read her two chapters of the fox book, doing the voice badly, and she corrects me twice on the inflection.
"Miss Tessa does it higher," she says.
"I'll work on it."I don’t think my voice can go that high.
She settles. I keep reading, quieter, until her breathing slows and her hand unclenches against the pillow. I sit for another minute after that. The room still has Jace in it — his old shelf with the hockey trophies, the photo on the dresser, the particular smell of a room that hasn't fully been changed over. I've left it mostly as it was. I don't know if that's right.
When's Daddy coming back?she asked me, two weeks ago. She doesn't ask every night now — only sometimes, when she's had a particularly good day, like the goodness of it makes the absence sharper.
