Thomas said. "I told them it would." "Luke." Jacob said. "What I told them."
Thomas made a sound that against all odds was almost a laugh. Clara set him down at the kitchen table and rolled up what was left of his sleeve and cleaned the gash on his forearm with a steadiness that she maintained through the deliberate concentration of a woman who has told herself she is doing a job. She had steady hands. She had always had steady hands. She was grateful for them now.
He sat still while she worked. He watched her face. She didn't look at his eyes. She looked at what she was doing. "You came out in the storm."
He said. The storm had passed. Most of it. Enough of it. "Clara."
She looked up. He was looking at her with that expression. The one she still hadn't been able to categorize. It was closer now the way things look when you're near enough to see the details and what she saw in it was not complicated actually. What she saw was very simple and very old and she recognized it because she was feeling a version of it herself.
She looked back at his arm. "This needs to be bandaged." She said. "I know." "You should stay off the ankle for a day."
"I've got Jacob can manage the morning rounds." She said. "He does half of them already and you know it." Thomas was quiet. "You are allowed."
Clara said with her eyes still on his arm, "to let people help you." "This is something I told you already. I know you told me. Then act like you remember it. She finished bandaging his arm.
She sat back. Her hands finally unoccupied, she put in her lap. She looked at the table between them. You scared me, she said. She said it very quietly and very plainly the way she said things when she had decided to stop managing them.
Coming back late in that storm. You scared me. Thomas didn't say anything for a moment. I know, he said finally. I could see the house from the creek bank.