She followed his gaze, and sure enough, there was Rachel, standing still in an open space, looking this way and that. Then all became clear. From behind one of the big oaks Roman stepped and called to her something they could not hear. From behind another oak where he had hidden to make their game, Floyd stepped. She ran to Roman, who squatted so that she might hug him; and then she ran to Floyd, who caught her and lifted her high in the air, the starched pinafore she wore over a wool dress billowing about her as she shrieked her pleasure.

Leon flung open the window and called, “Bring her here to me!”

Floyd nodded his head to show he had heard, still lifting and lowering and swinging the child through the air to her delight, as he brought her to the window. Floyd pretended to throw her through the window, although his hands did not let her go until he felt her taken by Leon’s hands. All laughed together except Roman, who had not come up, but stood in the distance smiling in a formal way. Noticing him, Sarah called, “Roman! You’ve only a thin shirt on your shoulders—you mustn’t take a chill!”

This released him, and he turned to go. Floyd elaborately pantomimed a farewell to the child as he said, “Bye, Bye! Goodbye, Rachel! Bye!” Then he turned and went off after Roman.

“Who do you love? Who does Rachel love?” Leon demanded of the child with mock ferocity.

“Papa!” she cried and put her arms about his neck.

Sarah watched as Floyd overtook Roman, shoved him in a friendly way and then walked along beside him. After a moment’s conversation, he put an arm casually around the boy’s shoulders.

16

There was no frost that morning, but it was chill enough for Leon to go to a window when he got out of bed, to see if there was. He remembered doing so as a boy, sometimes discovering frost on the empty fields like a benediction of snow—or the way he imagined snow, for he had never seen it. He dressed quickly and left Sarah still sleeping when he tiptoed out of their room. The remembrance of boyhood sent him from the house directly, to see if Floyd was up. It was a fine day, so bright and clear, Leon felt, that had it been a lot more so, it would have broken like a piece of too-perfect glass.

As he came into Ezra’s back yard, the cabin door opened and Floyd came out, seeing Leon with no surprise. It had happened often since Floyd’s return. Each went his own way, but they would meet just as one thought of the other and considered going to find him, as though their thoughts, like magnets, compelled them to meet.

“Morning.”

“Morning.”

“Thought there might be frost,” Leon said.

“I just came out to look.”