“When did you get him?” Muncie asked, looking up at me.

“A couple of weeks ago. He was an early present.” I didn’t say whose present.

“What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one yet.”

Muncie looked surprised, but the puppy kept wiggling around her and she let it go.

After a while Muncie started shivering so bad, her whole body chattered.

“I have to go in,” she said, wrapping her nylon arms around herself. “It’s fierce out here.”

I nodded, pinching my nose with the fingers of my glove as Muncie walked away.

Leading the puppy back to the front pasture, I closed him in for his second night outside. He headed straight to the warmth in the center of the flock, and the sheep tightened their circle around him.

“You look half frozen,” Gran said as I tumbled with Caleb into the kitchen.

I looked out the window at the thermometer mounted on the side of the house. “Four degrees below zero. And a whole lot colder when the wind blows.”

“Everything okay out there?” Gran asked, stirring dried parsley into a white sauce destined for the big pot on the stove.

“The sheep are fine,” I answered.

Gran’s back blocked my view of the pot. She never turned from her stirring. You couldn’t leave white sauce once you started. “Nyle?” Her voice raised to little more than a whisper.

“Ayuh.” I leaned toward her; the kitchen chair squeaked.

“Ezra is doing better every day,” Gran said.

My heart hammered. “He’s leaving, isn’t he?”

“No, he’s not leaving.” Gran eyed me fiercely. “Not yet. The visiting nurse came. He says Ezra’s ready to go outdoors.”

“Anyone ask Ezra how he feels about that?”

“He needs sunlight on his skin, he needs to see nothing will hurt him out there. The nurse said it’d be okay if Ezra wanted to wear the mask.”

I recalled how much Ezra had improved, just moving around the house, into the kitchen, up to my room. He was ready to go out.

“You’re right,” I said.

“Good.”

“It’ll give him a chance to see the puppy again.”

“When’s he going to name that dog?”

I shrugged. My stomach rumbled with hunger.

“The milk on the stove should be warm,” Gran said. “Pour some into a mug and add a little molasses to it.”

I stirred the dark, sticky syrup into a mug of milk and swilled the muzzy liquid over my tongue. Slowly, enjoying every sip, I downed the small warm comfort.

I wondered how I might persuade Ezra to come outside. Would it be enough to tell him about the way the light glistened on the sheep’s icy backs today? He couldn’t see that through his window.

Or I could tell him to start tending those sheep he’d been grilling me about. His interest hadn’t dimmed, not after weeks of pumping me with questions.

But most likely, I just needed to tell him that’s the only way he could see his puppy again.