His hands were slightly dusty and there was a faint smell of machine oil about him. He sat down at the table and she poured coffee without being asked and set it in front of him and sat across from him. He looked at the coffee then at her. It's cold in there, he said. I expect it is 3 years of cold.
Yes. He wrapped both hands around the cup. He was quiet for a moment in the way of someone who has done a hard thing and needs to let the fact of having done it settle before he starts talking about it. She gave him the time. She was good at giving time.
It was one of the things she had been good at her whole life. Her shawl is on the peg, he said finally. Where she always put it. Do you want to leave it there? He thought about this seriously, which told her he'd already been thinking about it for the past hour.
Yes, he said. For now, maybe permanently. I don't know yet. He looked at his coffee. The machine works.
The treadle needs oil along the left joint, but the mechanism is sound. That's good. I moved your trunk in there. He glanced at her. If you want it somewhere else, I'll move it again.
But the pantry room isn't a real room. The sewing room has a window on the south side and a stove. And he stopped. He looked at her steadily. It's a better room than you've had.
Odora was quiet for a moment. You moved my trunk into your wife's sewing room. It's a sewing room. He said it should be used by someone who sews. She looked at him.
He held her gaze without looking away, which he was getting better at. "All right," she said. He nodded. He drank his coffee. Then he reached into the front pocket of his shirt and set something on the table.