He had also not abandoned his campaign regarding the cat. The direct approach — walking up to her, saying “up” with arms raised waiting — had produced nothing. The cat’s response was to look at him with the expression of an animal deciding whether to move and concluding that moving would reward poor behavior.
He had moved to offerings. A piece of bread, which the cat ate without acknowledging the giver. A wooden spoon. On one occasion, his own sock, carefully removed and placed before the cat like tribute.
The cat sat on it.
“He thinks if he gives her enough things, she’ll let him pick her up,” May told Ruth one morning.
“Will she?”
May considered this seriously. “She let Papa pick her up once. He didn’t do it right and she bit him.”
“What’s the right way?”
“Nobody knows.” May said. “I don’t think she knows.”
A piece of carrot was accepted. Eli looked at Ruth in triumph.
“He thinks that means something,” May said.
Calvin watched all of this from the edges. He was a man who had learned to observe things quietly because speaking had always cost him more than it seemed to cost other people. He watched his daughter’s hands unknot slowly, not all at once, but each morning slightly less defended than the one before. He watched his son eat full meals and look for more. He watched something return to his house that he hadn’t known how to name while it was absent.
Small things changed without being announced. He started leaving the morning supplies laid out before she reached the kitchen. She had his coffee ready when he came in from the first round. Neither of them said anything about either of these things. They just happened. Adjustments between people sharing a daily life, the only way proud people allow themselves to be known.
One afternoon, Ruth was reaching for something on the high shelf. Straining slightly, not quite there. Calvin, passing through, reached past her and got it without comment and kept walking. Ruth stood for a moment with the jar in her hands. May, at the table, was studying her bread with great concentration. She had not seen anything at all.
One evening, Eli fell asleep at the table with his face in his supper. Directly into it. One moment upright, the next simply gone, cheek in the bowl. Ruth and Calvin looked at him at the same moment and then looked at each other. Something moved in both their faces simultaneously, very close to a smile, before they looked away.
May, who had seen it, stored this carefully.
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