I thought it was the surprise he mentioned. Maybe it was. She turned and looked at the shelf with the parts bins. She reached up and pulled one down a small plastic bin labeled in red marker. Inside were woodworking joints cut and fitted clearly practice pieces.
The kind of thing you make when you're working out how to do something before you do it properly. Under the bin on the shelf, was a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it. It was a sketch, handdrawn, careful, a maple tree, small, young, with measurements and placement notes written around it. And at the bottom, in Daniel's handwriting, a single line for Clare's garden.
Plant it where she can see it from the kitchen window. She stood there holding the sketch for a long time. I didn't say anything. I just stood at the door and gave her the time she needed. When she finally turned around, her eyes were wet.
Not crying, just the particular state that comes just before. When you've been holding something for a very long time, and the weight of it becomes briefly visible. He was going to plant a tree, she said. Yes, after all of it. After whatever happened, he was planning to plant a tree.
He thought he was going to make it. I said he was planning for after. She folded the sketch back along its original creases very carefully and put it in her pocket. She took one more look around the workshop at the tools on the pegboard, each in its place at the parts bins labeled at the workbench where Daniel had spent his last year building a case that would outlast him. Then she walked out.
I pulled the door shut behind us. We were standing in the yard when the car pulled up. Not a federal vehicle, a private car, older model. And from it came a man I didn't recognize. Late 50s workc clothes moving like someone who'd driven a long way and wasn't sure of his welcome.
Clare saw him and went completely still. That's Frank Delra. She said quietly. He was Daniel's captain at the station. He retired 3 years ago.
Margaret Hail's husband. Yes. She watched him walk toward us. I haven't seen him since the funeral. Frank stopped about 10 ft away.
He took his cap off, which was an old-fashioned gesture that suited him exactly. Clare, his voice was rough. I heard what happened. Margaret told me some of it this morning. I thought I should have come a long time ago.
I should have come to you when Daniel died and told you what I thought, and I didn't because I didn't have proof. And because I didn't want to, I didn't want to put something on you that I couldn't back up. Clare was very still. What do you mean what you thought? Frank turned his cap in his hands.