She turned back and lifted the quarters of partridge from the milk and dredged them in the flour and let them go into the hot grease. They sank popping and then came back to the surface, swimming with the heat as they cooked. When they were all in, she moved the pieces back and forth with a long-handled fork. Newspaper was laid out on the counter beside the range to drain the bird-parts on. Prudence opened the oven and lifted out the sheets with the high delicate corn puffs. Drained the water off the greens and added butter and cream to the squash. All this set before him. He rose and stood the shotgun in a corner and called the dogs out from the table into the woodshed. Then sat back down. The women seated, looking at him. Their faces bright, shining. He understood behind that love was a tremble, a quiver of expected rejection. And he was no longer sure of the night before him, not so sure he could announce himself. He took up a piece of partridge and his teeth broke through the hot savory crust and the sweet meat came off the bone clean into his mouth. He smiled at them. “Oh my,” he said, “that’s some good.” And they got busy passing bowls around and he helped himself. They ate, all shy, not talking, eyes skittering away from the others. And he ate the lovely food with his heart hurting in his chest. All the way through the meal the two women throwing their eyes over him as if casting hopeful broken nets. All the time turning his eye to what he could not see, toward what he wanted to stand and walk to and study again: the oval portrait of his grandparents in the parlor.

Supper was over and cleaned up and he’d taken the dogs out, running bent over through the rain to the barns to lead them down to the sheepfold and their bed and then back to the house where he stripped off his soaked coat and hung it on the back of a chair near the range to dry. The women were in the parlor. He stood over the sink and drank two glassfuls of water, then passed through the door into the hall and down to join them.

They’d laid a fire in the stove against the wet and he stood by the mantel for a moment with his fingertips resting up there as if he were warming himself as he studied again the man and woman in the portrait. And he believed now he understood the arch of their gazes; what he wanted to find was some fragment of the tender world they’d held between them. He turned to the room and held his hands together before him.

Abigail spoke. “Did you graduate your high school? Over there to the Whites?”

He’d been about to speak. He paused, knowing he was frowning a little in response. He put his hands in his pockets. “No, ma’am. I’ve a year to go.”