Chapter 5: Finished

“The note was wrong.”

“Yes.”

“You could hear it.”

“Sometimes. When you played it for me.”

The kitchen smelled sharper now, as though the onions had been brought into the room. Ada Mercer freed the cuff and smoothed it over her wrist. She could see a small crescent of dust on the piano where the button bowl had stood.

“You said it was troubling you.”

Nora Bell looked down at the onion skin still held between her fingers.

“It wasn’t troubling us as much as I said.”

There was no noise from the boy. Ada Mercer could see his coat on the chair beyond the doorway, one sleeve hanging nearly to the floor. He had not put it on. He was waiting for her to finish, just as he had waited while a sound died away.

She rubbed the dusty crescent with the side of her hand.

“You should have told me.”

“I thought you wouldn’t come.”

For a moment Ada Mercer could find nothing to do with either hand. The bowl was already in place. The panel was secure. Beneath it, the strings had no further need of her that afternoon.

“That wasn’t yours to decide.”

“No,” Nora Bell said.

She did not explain what she had meant by it, or ask to be understood. She took the towel into the kitchen. Ada Mercer knelt beside the bag and began fitting the remaining tools into their pockets. Her knees made the descent awkward. She normally did this standing, with the bag on the bench.

The envelope appeared beside her.

“For today,” Nora Bell said.

Ada Mercer stood too quickly and waited for the pressure in her head to ease. She took the envelope by its corner.

“I did finish it.”

“Yes. You did.”

She put it into her handbag without opening it. Eli Finch held the tool bag steady while she drew the fastening closed. The small pockets had passed beneath her fingers without being counted.

At the doorway, Nora Bell reached for his coat and handed it to him. He thanked her. The ordinary exchange made Ada Mercer search for something equally ordinary to say.

“Keep the room as even as you can. The heat.”

“I will.”

They moved into the hall. The grocery bag was gone from the floor.

“There’s food,” Nora Bell said. “I was getting—”

Ada Mercer looked toward the front door.

The sentence stopped there. Nora Bell opened the door and stood back to give them room.

“Thank you for today.”

“Good afternoon,” Ada Mercer said.