Martha came over at two o’clock with her wool shawl pulled tight around her narrow shoulders. She did not ask where her son was, but she sat on the low stool by my sewing basket and began folding the white pillowcases I had washed the day before.
“He was always first at the bench,” Martha said, her fingers smoothing a crease with a quick, snapping motion. “Even when he was twelve and the leg kept him from the ball field, he would sit in the cellar with the old battery sets. He likes to make things talk.”
“He does not need to work on a Sunday,” I said, setting a stack of towels on the sideboard.
“He thinks he does,” she replied. She did not look up from her folding. “James has a way of looking at a clock that makes him think the afternoon is already gone.”
A small pang of guilt caught in my throat as I watched her thin hands. I had spent the morning hoping he would stay away, but seeing his note on the table made the quiet house feel too large.
“Is there some trouble with the shop?” I asked. “A debt we have to pay?”
Martha stopped her hands, holding a folded sheet against her apron. “A man who repairs radios does not get rich, Sarah, but he keeps his promises. He wanted this place ready for you.”
“It is ready,” I said. “We have the kitchen and the room upstairs.”
“He wants more than a room for you,” she said, her voice dropping into that sharp, dry tone. “Just let him work. It is the only way he knows how to tell you he is here.”
She laid the pillowcase on the stack and patted it once with her palm. The gesture was final, the way she ended most of her thoughts, leaving me with the basket of damp clothes and a lingering doubt about the man I had married.
The smell of solder and hot vacuum tubes came through the back door before James did. It was nearly six when the screen door clicked shut and he carried his heavy grey toolbox into the kitchen. His left leg dragged slightly on the threshold, a dull scuff on the linoleum that I was already learning to listen for.
