The page he'd turned to was in my handwriting.
He stared at it for a moment, then picked the song back up.
Fourth verse. He stalled again.
Back then, whenever he stalled, I would come in under him.
Two voices, one high and one low, folding together beneath the roof of the bell-tower hall.
Today there was only his.
Hollow and thin, with no second voice to lift it or set it down.
I bent for the wooden basin and turned to go.
His phone rang by the fire pit.
He glanced down at it.
Hesitated.
Then answered.
I couldn't make out his words.
But on the other end, a woman was crying.
His voice dropped into that practiced, gentle tone I knew so well.
"Don't cry. Just tell me what's wrong."
"Let me see what I can do."
"Hey, don't panic."
I carried the basin away.
The creek was cold. I wrung out the clothes and hung them over the bamboo pole.
The water clung to the backs of my hands in a thin film.
The half-sung song was still circling in my ears.
That pause in the fourth verse, like a nail left half-driven.
Back at Mama's, she was already asleep.
I sat on the bench in the main room and opened the songbook I'd brought home that day.
A hundred-some songs, copied out one by one.
The last page was blank.
I turned it over. On the back, a line in pencil, in his hand.
"When the album's done, I'll come back and sing it for Aria."
The date beneath it was the day he left the town.
Written seven years ago.
I closed the songbook and put it in Mama's old wood chest.
The brass latch had rusted, and it stuck a little as it shut.
The next morning, the old woman from the west end of town came to visit.
She and Mama talked for a while, and on her way out she glanced at me.
Mama walked her to the door, came back, and sat down. "The Cross family has sent word to ask twice now."
"Alvin Cross's worked wood his whole life. Good hands, honest man."
Mama didn't press me for an answer.
I folded the quilt and thought it over.
"Let him come and sit a while."
Mama looked at me.
I said it again. "Let him come sit."
That night, lying in bed, no more singing came from the direction of the bell-tower hall.
Moonlight came through the window and fell on the closed wood chest.
The brass latch was dull and gray.
Not a sound anywhere.
The day Alvin came, he brought a comb he'd carved himself.
Highland cedar, fine-grained, the kind that won't snag.
He set the comb on the table and sat on the bench in the main room drinking tea.
He didn't say anything.
Mama came in to refill the water, looked at the comb, then looked at him.
He raised the bowl and took a sip. "Ma'am, I'm clumsy with words."
"This comb won't pull your hair when you brush it."
Mama gave a soft hum and went to cook.
That left only the two of us in the main room.
His hands were large, the knuckles thick, the calluses worn in by years of wood shavings.
I picked up the comb and turned it over in my palm.
Smooth. Steady.
No pretty words, no big promises.
Just a comb that wouldn't pull a single hair.
I closed my hand around it. "Alvin."
He looked up.
"You know I waited seven years?"
He said, "I know."
"And you don't mind?"
He thought about it. "You were waiting on someone else."
"I'm waiting on you."
Then he lowered his head and drank his tea, as if he'd said the most ordinary thing in the world.
Outside, the sun was warm.
I said, "Then I'll have Mama give the answer."
On his way out, Alvin met Luke Weiss at the courtyard gate.
Luke froze for a beat, looked at him, then looked toward my house.
