I looked up. The back porch bore the force of the morning sun, the wide, clean boards bared in that light. But the possibility of second agitating encounter with Cook caused me to turn round and retreat from the kitchen stairs. A spot of movement and color flashed between the trees. I closed my eyes, then slowly opened them once more. There was Bart, walking from out the woods into the dry grasses of the field, a battered brown cap upon his head, his red kerchief around his neck. So casual, so familiar was he just then, ambling across in my direction, it worked upon me like the turning of a page. With him in my eyes, I could let the trouble rest.

I stood upon the back porch and waved to him, crossing my arms up above my head. With a shout, he greeted me, then walked faster toward the House. I had the sensation of reeling him in, of having put my hands up and taken hold of a line I must have cast but only now discovered; and sure at last, I grasped its heft in my fingers firmly and pulled and pulled as he bounded up the back steps and took my hand in his. I rested there with him, my hands caught and held.

“Oh, Bart,” I whispered. “So much has happened.”

He squeezed my hand in his. “I have heard,” he answered. And neither did we speak of her again, and neither did we need to.

After a time, we slowly descended, slightly apart once we were out of the shadow of the back porch, and walked round the side of the House to the front. I saw Mama’s head and shoulders rising from her usual rocker faced out to sea, the band of morning shadow slanted cross her. Mr. Cutting stood beside, his one hand upon the back of her chair, the other thrust into his pocket. Some slight communion had joined them now; I could see the silence they shared had notes within, something they could hear, together. I broke off that last Lady Rose as I passed the soft scent, and gently shook the dew from its head.

“Good morning,” Bart greeted the pair, and threw himself down upon the topmost stair, facing me. There was an instant when I stood, my one foot on the bottom stair, looking up at the trio, each in their own fashion staring down upon me. Bart’s eyes rested on my face and hair, his lips parted as he gazed, a look soft as the breath I imagined escaping him. I could not look directly at Mama, but noted how she worked on, her fingers quick with the thread, the tiny needle glinting in and out of shadow.