The tremor under my palm felt like a small, trapped bird, and for a second, I wondered if he was pulling away from me, or if he was simply afraid of what I might ask of him. I held on tighter, closing my fingers over his.
He did not pull away. His grip tightened in return, warm and steady despite the shaking, as we watched the lights of the town begin to blink on below the hill.
By the middle of October, the morning air in the kitchen carried a sharp chill that made my knuckles ache. James was already up, standing by the black iron stove with his left leg braced against the woodpile. He was dropping pieces of dried orange peel and a broken cinnamon stick into a small blue pot of boiling water.
The scent of the spices rose with the steam, cutting through the dry smell of the woodsmoke. He poured the dark liquid into two thick ceramic mugs and handed one to me.
“Autumn tea should taste like home, a little warm, a little bitter, and full of love,” James murmured.
I took the mug, letting the warmth settle into my fingers. My silver wedding band was cold against the ceramic. I twisted the band twice, watching his face in the dim morning light.
“It is very quiet here in the mornings,” I said.
“It will get quieter when the leaves are fully down,” he said. He took a slow sip, his shoulders dropping as if he had carried a heavy sack up the hill.
“Martha said she wanted to help with the winter canning next week,” I said, blowing on the hot tea.
“Mother should stay by the fire,” James said, his voice flat. “Her breathing is not good when the damp sets in.”
“She still tries to do too much,” I said.
“We all do,” he said. He limped toward the back door, his left boot scraping slightly on the pine floorboards.
He was gone before the sun had cleared the top of the maples. I stood by the window, holding the warm mug, wondering what he did in those early hours before the shop on Main Street opened its doors.
By three in the afternoon, the wind had picked up, blowing dry oak leaves down the alleyways. I walked down the hill carrying a small metal tin with two thick slices of bread and some sharp cheddar cheese. A loaf of bread had gone up to forty-five cents at the corner grocery, and I had counted the coins twice before leaving the kitchen.
The repair shop on Main Street smelled of hot solder, old grease, and the dry, metallic heat of vacuum tubes warming up. James was bent over his workbench, his back to the door, a small magnifying loupe held to his right eye.
“James,” I said.
He started, his hand jerking slightly before he turned around. He wiped his palms on a gray cloth that was stiff with machine oil.
“You did not have to walk all this way in the wind, Sarah,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, deliberate murmur.
I stepped closer to set the lunch tin down on the wooden bench. Beside his elbow, under a half-empty glass of water, sat a small pile of cream-colored envelopes. The top one was addressed to him in thick, black ink.
