On the first day of December, two things happened. The first was that Viven burned her hand on the stove. Not badly. She pulled back fast, and the burn was a shallow one along the back of her fingers, but fast as she'd pulled back fast as she'd locked her face into its familiar composure, he'd seen her breath catch, and seen the split second before the composure came down, when she was just a person who had hurt herself and hadn't been fast enough yet to put the mask back up. He took her hand and held it under the pump water, which she let him do.
And he found some lard and cloth for wrapping, and she let him do that, too. And while he worked, she looked out the window and he looked at her hand, and neither of them said anything. And there was something in the silence of it that was entirely different from the silences of the first week. The second thing was a letter. He found it on the porch when he came back from the barn at dusk, slipped under the door, which meant someone had been on the property without coming to the front, without knocking.
There was no envelope, just a folded paper with Vivien's name written on the outside in a tight, forward-leaning hand he didn't recognize. He brought it inside and put it on the kitchen table and didn't say anything. She saw it when she came in from the water pump. She stopped. She looked at it for a moment from across the room with an expression that was not surprise.
It was the opposite of surprise. It was the look of a person who has been waiting for something and has now seen it arrive. She picked it up and went to her room. He made supper. He got Elsie fed and to bed.
He was at the table with his coffee when Viven came back out. She sat down across from him and put the letter face down on the table. And she looked at him with the expression of someone who has made a decision and is still living in the last moment before they act on it. Someone knows I'm here, she said. He waited.
I need you to understand that it may create difficulty for you. She said it plainly, not dramatically, the way you state a fact. If you want me to leave before it does, I'll understand that. I think that's a fair thing to offer you. He looked at her across the table.
He looked at the letter face down between them. I'm not going to tell you to leave, he said. You don't know yet what I know you repaired my daughter's doll with the best thread you had. He heard how that sounded and didn't try to take it back. Whatever comes, we'll handle it.
But if you want to tell me what it is, I think maybe it's time. She looked at the letter. She looked at her bandaged hand. She looked at him. Not tonight, she said.