I help P in the mornings. After school. School's 3 miles, Jacob said in the tone of someone explaining a logistics problem. If I go, I don't get back until past 4. P needs help before that.
What time does school let out? Half 3. And what time does your father need you? A pause. I help him in the mornings before I'd even get to school.
Clare looked at him steadily. So you could go to school and still be home in time to help in the afternoons. Jacob's jaw tightened in a way that reminded her exactly of his father. I'm more use here, he said. You're 12 years old, Clare said.
I know how old I am. Then you know you should be in school. Jacob closed the letter with a deliberate flatness that managed to be both respectful and final. "Miss Bennett," he said with the careful precision of someone who has had this argument before and ended it. "I appreciate your concern, but this is how things are," Clare looked at him for a long moment.
"All right," she said. She let it go for now. She raised it with Thomas 3 days later. Not as a complaint, not as a confrontation. She waited until after supper when the children were upstairs and Thomas was sitting on the porch with his coffee.
His habit she had learned the one time of day. He gave himself to simply sit and she brought out her own cup and stood at the porch railing and said, "Jacob isn't going to school." Thomas was quiet. I know, he said. He's 12.
I know that, too. He's running your books. He's good at it. He's 12, Mr. Walker. Clare said again, not with accusation, with something more like grief.
He's good at it because he's smart and he's your son, and he's trying to hold your family together, the only way he knows how. But he shouldn't have to be doing that instead of being in school. Thomas turned his coffee cup in his hands. The mountain above them was dark against a sky still holding the last of the sunset. I know, I know, he said for the third time differently.
I can manage the mornings, Clare said. If Jacob goes to school, I can do what needs doing before noon. I'll get up earlier if I have to. Thomas looked at her. You're here to manage the house, he said, not unkindly, just stating the arrangement.
I'm here to help this house run better, Clare said. Jacob being in school is part of that. A long silence. I'll think on it, Thomas said. It was not yes, but the way he said I'll think on it with the weight of a man who had already thought on it plenty and had been hoping someone would give him permission to act on what he already knew told her it would be yes by morning.