“Ah, here you are.” Audrey’s face appears in the doorway.
At the sight of the shredder, she gives an affected shudder, as though Kate were disposing of animal entrails and not decades-old paper. Kate only barely refrains from rolling her eyes.
“The toilet in the hall is on the blink. I rang Ian to come take a look at it,” Audrey says.
“What’s wrong with it? It was working fine earlier.”
Audrey pinches her lips the way she does when she doesn’t like a question. “No idea. That’s why Ian’s coming round.”
He arrives within an hour, brushes a dusting of snow off his wool coat, then hangs it in the hall closet. The battered toolbox in his hand is starkly at odds with his crisp khakis and tweed blazer. He moves about the Oakwood with a comfortable familiarity that somehow doesn’t overstep or presume.
He greets Kate with a genuine smile. “Nice to see you again so soon.” His glasses fog up a little in the warmth of the foyer.
“You, too,” Kate says. She realizes she means it, and it takes her a beat to recognize the feeling in her gut.
“So, it’s the toilet, this time, yeah?”
Kate clears her throat. “Yes.”
She follows him down the hall, then leans against the door frame and watches as he removes the tank’s lid and peers inside. His brow wrinkles in concentration for a minute or two.
“Hm. Interesting.”
Kate waits for the diagnosis. “What is?”
“It looks like the chain has just been pulled out. I have no idea how that would happen unless someone was mucking about with it. But you haven’t had any guests, have you?”
“No. Just us.”
“And you haven’t touched this?”
“I don’t make a habit of fiddling with toilet tanks, generally,” Kate says.
“Well, I can’t see how it happened. But at any rate, it needs a new chain. I can pop by with one later.”
As they return to the front hall, Audrey comes out of the office. She braces her weight with one hand on the wall, her stature stooping slightly.
“Ian!” she says, flashing him a tight smile, almost pained. “My dear boy, how are you?”
He sets the toolbox down and she pulls him into a hug, kisses his cheek as though she were indeed his own gran.
“Do you have a moment?” she asks him in an undertone.
He glances at Kate, then steps into the office. The door shuts with a soft thud and Kate moves into the sitting room, where Ozzie and Sophie are cuddled together.
Twenty minutes later, Audrey calls, “Lunch, Kate?”
Kate smiles. Anything Audrey asks her to do falls into that awkward ditch between a request and a direction.
“Ian is joining us,” Audrey says.
“Audrey,” Kate hears Ian protest, “I don’t—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, dear, you’re staying.”
In the dining room, Audrey appears as stoic as ever, but Ian looks distinctly rattled and his nose is pink. He remains quiet as they munch on a quick meal of tomato soup and cheese sandwiches, despite Kate’s attempts to catch his eye. She wonders what sort of exchange occurred to elicit this reaction from him. Audrey peppers Kate with suspicious questions about the new electronic filing system, then announces her need for a nap and heads upstairs, patting Ian’s arm on the way by. Sophie follows at her heels.
Ozzie looks rather lonesome and lost without his constant companion, and Ian is still acting odd.
“I thought I might take Oz out for a good walk around the grounds,” Kate says, taking their dishes over to the sink. “Want to join? Or are you heading out?”
Ian nods tightly. “Yeah, that’d be great actually. I need some air.”
Ozzie’s tail pounds against the hallway rug as they pull their coats on. Outside, the snow has stopped, leaving a thick dusting of fluffy white over the sweeping grounds. The smell of smoke from the chimney emits the scent of pine and nostalgia.
They forge a new path in the crisp surface of the snow. Some crows call out in the distance, protesting Ozzie’s presence as the three of them loop around the edge of the woods.
“So,” Ian says, stepping into conversation. “How are your talks going with Audrey?”
Kate turns her coat collar up against the cold. “It’s been good. I took your suggestion, and she agreed to tell me. I’m recording her so I can transcribe the whole thing later, and taking some notes too. We’ve developed a good rhythm.” She describes how they sit down after lunch or dinner nearly every day, how open Audrey’s been. “Every time she tells me she’s done for the day, I’m always left with more questions.”
Kate has done her best not to push, but there’s no denying that these talks have fundamentally shifted their relationship. The stories that fall from Audrey’s aging lips seem to linger in the air of the Oakwood from day to day, like the scent of strong spices wafting from a kitchen. Enticing, and certainly not unwelcome, but undeniably distracting for them both.
“She seemed a bit mysterious with you today, though,” Kate says. “Mind if I ask what that was about?”
Ian exhales, fogging the air. “She told me she’s been talking to you about Berlin, and the war. She didn’t say much about the details, though.”
Ozzie barks at a sparrow that’s landed on a nearby tree.
