Chapter 8 - The Grain of the Wood
The winter came in dry and cold.
The north room of the house was no longer empty. The roller in the dry tray had been thrown away, replaced by two cans of soft blue paint that Caroline had chosen herself.
She worked on the walls while Emma slept in the cradle by the window.
She had a light hand with the brush. Walter would stand in the doorway, his shoulder against the jamb, watching her paint the trim around the window.
"You're using too much paint on the heel of the brush," he said one afternoon. "You’ll get runs."
"I like it thick," she said, not looking back. "It covers the cracks."
"The cracks are where the house breathes," Walter said. "If you fill them up, the wood has nowhere to go when the humidity comes back in June. You have to leave them a little room."
She stopped her brush, her hand hovering an inch from the wood. "Does everything have to have room to move, Walter?"
"Old things do," he said. "If you pin them down too tight, they split."
She turned around, her face smeared with a small dot of blue paint near her temple. "My father used to say that about the walnut panels. He said if you don't leave a sixteenth of an inch in the frame, the winter will pull the joints apart."
"Your father was a smart man," Walter said.
"He was," she said softly. "But he didn't have anyone to help him when the bank came."
Walter walked into the room. He took the brush from her hand and set it on the lid of the paint can. He took her hand—her small, rough hand with the scar on the thumb—and held it between his own.
"You have someone now," he said.
May you like
They stood there for a long time, the cold winter sun coming through the window, warming the blue paint and the pine floor.
In the cradle, Emma made a small, bubbling sound, her hands reaching up toward the light.
