In the kitchen, Ruth pauses above Maggie’s dish, which is still full with this morning’s breakfast. Ruth frowns. She wanders into the family room, where Maggie lies by the picture window beside the heating vent. Ruth peers at her closely, watches the gentle rise and fall of her ribs, too easily visible.

“Maggie.” She says it quietly. Maggie breathes.

Ruth kneels beside the dog; Maggie opens a glazed eye. The fur beneath her ears is matted.

“Here.” Ruth takes a single piece of kibble from the measuring cup. Maggie sniffs it without lifting her head. Her nose is dry. “Please, eat.” The dog takes the kibble from Ruth’s hand, mouths it, and lets it fall to the floor. “No, eat,” Ruth says. She takes a new piece of kibble. The dog lifts her head, and again she takes the kibble from Ruth’s hand. This piece she grinds and swallows. “Good dog,” Ruth says. “Good dog.” She takes another piece of kibble from the many in the cup and holds it out. Maggie eats. “Good, good dog.” Maggie lets out a labored breath.

Ruth pauses before holding out the next piece of kibble she takes from the cup. She can hear the sound of music coming from the other room, tentative and gentle, and it is a moment before she is sure that it is Isabelle playing, and not the radio or stereo. Is it? She strains her ears. It has been a long time since she has heard this piano played, but yes, the sound is unmistakable, the notes old and tinny and distinct.

“Maggie,” she says. “Here. Will you, please?”

Maggie will, and does. The sound of the piano gets louder.

“Good girl,” Ruth says. “Good girl.” Her hair wavers in the hot air blowing up from the vent, and her knees are sore from crouching, and so she lowers herself completely to the floor. She will feed this meal to Maggie piece by piece, if that’s the only way to do it, as she quietly listens to her daughter play.

She rests her head against the cold glass of the window and looks into her own eyes dimly reflected there. She blinks at herself, and then looks beyond the glass into the yard. Wilson is out there in his shirtsleeves. His coat flaps from a branch of the fallen apple tree he’s not yet cut and added to the modest pile near the tree’s stump. She watches as he guides the blade through a branch, and she is glad not to be able to hear above the sound of the piano the chainsaw’s buzzing whine. The limb falls; Wilson straightens up and runs an arm across his brow, then throws the limb aside, onto the pile with the rest of the wood.

II