This argument carried them through the beans. Thomas Callahan ate in silence and answered direct questions when they were put to him, and otherwise seemed to exist in a separate room from the rest of them, even while he was physically present. Noah, the youngest, the one with the enormous dark eyes, sat beside Clara without having asked to. He had simply arrived in the chair next to hers when they sat down to eat, and then proceeded to eat his meal with the focused concentration of a 4-year-old who was applying himself seriously to the task. Halfway through the meal, without looking up from his bowl, he reached over and put his small hand on Clara's wrist.
Just resting there, not grabbing, not asking for anything. Just there. Clara went very still. She looked down at that small hand on her wrist. Then she looked up and found Thomas Callahan watching her from across the table with an expression that was impossible to read, and that she decided in the interest of her own composure not to try.
She looked back at her plate. Noah did not remove his hand for the rest of the meal. After supper, Thomas Callahan showed her the room that would be hers. It was on the second floor at the end of the hall, small with a window that looked out over the back pasture. There was a bed with a clean quilt, a washstand, a hook on the wall, and a braided rug on the floor that had been made by hands she would never know.
"It's a decent room," she said. "It was the guest room," he said. He was standing in the doorway. He did not come in. "My wife kept it ready."
"I see. If there's anything "It's fine," Clara said. "Thank you." He nodded. He turned to go.
"Mr. Callahan." He stopped. She kept her back to him, looking out the window at the last light going gold over the pasture. "The children," she said.
"What are their names? All of them." A brief pause. "Jacob is 10. Emma, 8.
Luke is 6. Noah just turned 4." "Noah's the youngest." "Yes." She was quiet for a moment.
"He put his hand on my wrist at supper." "I know," Thomas said. "I saw." She turned then and looked at him in the doorway. The hallway behind him was dark and he stood in it like a man who had gotten used to standing in dark hallways.
"He doesn't do that with everyone," Thomas said. He said it like a warning and like an apology at the same time. "I know," Clara said. She didn't know how she knew, but she did. Thomas Callahan looked at her for a moment.