Leo came up the stairs carrying the shirt Daniel had sent for Mara to look at.
“He wants to know if that bit can be fixed,” he said.
He laid it on the table. The cuff had split along the seam, exposing a little white edge beneath the blue. Mara picked it up and rubbed it between her fingers. It was clean. Daniel had washed and ironed it before asking anyone to mend it.
“It's not bad,” she said.
“He said that too.”
Leo stood in her kitchen, looking larger than he ought to. Mara had remembered him the right size when they spoke on the phone; here he took up the space beside the refrigerator where he used to crouch and look for things she hadn't hidden well. His hair had been cut shorter. He had his father's habit of rubbing the bridge of his nose before admitting he was tired.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
He glanced toward the counter. “Not properly.”
“Eggs?”
“Anything.”
“Don't say anything. You always say that and then there's something.”
“Eggs, then.”
She got the pan out. The new sausages were gone; she had two eggs and half a tomato, enough if she added toast. Leo reached for the bread, found the bag empty and held it up.
“I'll go.”
“There's some in the freezer.”
“It's all right. I need to move. I've been in the car.”
She gave him the money before he could object. He went downstairs carrying the empty bread bag to throw away. Mara put Daniel's shirt over the back of a chair and took out her sewing tin, checking she still had a spool near enough to the right blue. She did. The tin closed with its familiar small click.
When Leo came back he had bought bread, milk and a newspaper he said his father wanted, though Daniel never finished one. Mara offered him a plate. He took it and sat on the chair that didn't lean. The other one creaked when she sat opposite him.
“Mom says you've got her coat.”
Mara looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Some things. For a week.”
“She told me she went back yesterday.”
“Friday.”
“Right. I keep losing a day.”
He cut the egg with the edge of his fork. Mara watched him dip the toast into the yolk. He had eaten that way as a child, trying to get enough onto the bread before anybody told him he had to use the fork properly.
“Have you seen her?” she asked.
“I'm going this afternoon.”
“Good.”
“She sent the address. Dad asked me where. I told him to ask her.”
Mara put down her cup. His voice was flat, not rehearsed, as if he had already used all the energy he had for that sentence.
“He wants to know she's all right.”
Leo nodded.
“You do too.”
“Yes.”
She moved the newspaper away from his elbow before the tomato juice reached it. On the front was a photograph of people running for a cause she couldn't see, all wearing the same shirt. She folded it with the photograph inside.
“She's having a bit of time,” she said.
Leo looked up. “That's what Dad says.”
“Well, it's been a long week.”
He chewed, thinking. “She sounded sure when I talked to her. Before the money, as well. I didn't think she meant—”
“You don't have to work it all out today.”
He looked relieved. It came so quickly that Mara could feel what she'd offered him, the chance to stop holding something until it changed back into a manageable shape.
“I'm getting food for Dad later,” he said. “I could ask if she'd come over. If it doesn't have to be a whole thing.”
He reached for his phone. Mara looked at the shirt on the chair, the small turned-back cuff Daniel had wanted her to see.
“Wait.”
Leo stopped with his thumb against the screen.
She could leave it. Elena could tell him herself; Elena already had. His parents were grown people. So was he. None of them had to learn to hear things from a woman who couldn't say them without trying the smaller version first.
“I want her to come home,” she said. “That's what I'm telling you. Not what she said.”
He set down the phone.
“She asked before the ticket. I knew she meant it. I made it sound like she didn't because I thought I could help him. I'm doing it to you now.”
Leo looked toward the window. The milk he had bought stood in the sunlight, its plastic handle shining. Mara moved it to the counter but did not get up again.
“Okay,” he said after a while.
She waited. He went back to the egg, cutting it into smaller pieces than he wanted.
“So I should just go to her room.”
“If that's what you've arranged.”
“It is.”
“Then yes.”
He ate another bite. She had cooked the yolk too much; there was no longer enough to spread over the toast. He finished it anyway and took his plate to the sink.
“She told me you went back in with Dad,” he said, turning on the tap.
Mara felt the chair's bad leg move beneath her.
“After Jo took her.”
“Yeah.”
“I did.”
He rinsed the plate, moving the water across its surface with his fingers. She waited for him to say something about whose side she had chosen. Instead he looked back.
“Was he all right?”
“Not very.”
Leo nodded, looking down at the plate again. A thin line of water ran off it into the sink.
“I've never heard him like this,” he said.
“I know.”
“He keeps finding things to do.”
“He does that.”
“He asked if I needed my kitchen cupboard fixed. It's a rental. I told him I've got a person to call.”
Mara smiled. Leo did too, but the smile went away before either could use it for anything.
He dried the plate and put it on the counter. “I don't want to have to report back.”
“Then don't.”
He looked at her.
“I mean you don't have to tell me either,” Mara said. “You can go and see her.”
He nodded. The milk was still on the counter. He picked it up and put it in the refrigerator, making room by moving the mustard jar. It had a smear down its side from Friday's knife.
Mara took out Daniel's shirt. Leo sat again and watched while she threaded the needle. The first thread was too short; she pulled it out and measured another length against her arm. He used to like watching her sew because it was one of the few things she did sitting down without a television speaking over her.
“Is it for the dinner?” he asked.
“Probably. I haven't asked.”
“Dad said there was a thing at the hotel.”
“When we finish. Simon's putting some food on. You can come.”
He looked at the cuff. Mara held the seam against the light, looking for where the first stitch should go.
“Is Mom going?”
“I don't know.”
“Are you asking her?”
“Everyone can bring someone. She works there too.”
“I know she does.”
Mara put the needle down. “I meant she can decide.”
He nodded. She picked it up again.
“I could come for a bit,” he said. “If it's just dinner.”
“There'll be people from work. Jo's children, probably. Your cousin if she wants to.”
“I don't want everyone watching me walk across a room.”
“They won't.”
“They will if people are talking about them. Mom and Dad.”
Mara held the two edges of the cuff together. Her own promise to Daniel returned in his son's voice, a different person asking for the same room to be left unbroken for a few hours.
“It's for the people at work,” she said. “I'll keep it that way.”
Leo let out a breath. “Then I'd like to. Tell me when.”
She said she would. He stood to make another cup of coffee while she sewed. At the first stitch the blue thread twisted into a loop; she eased it free with the point of the needle, holding the cloth close enough that she could see the little fibers along the split.
They talked about his drive, the stop he'd made at a rest area and a man who had bought two coffees and left them both on the roof of his car. Leo had tried waving. The man waved back and drove away. Leo said it had made him so cross that he'd spent ten minutes afterward wishing he'd let the man go without trying.
Mara laughed. She had to stop sewing until her hand steadied. Leo took the shirt gently from her and held it still while she made the last stitches.
When it was done she turned the cuff right side out and smoothed it with her thumb. It was not invisible. Nobody looking at Daniel's wrist across a table would see it, but he would know where she'd been.
“Take it back for him?” she asked.
Leo folded the shirt as well as he could. “I'm going to Mom first. I'll give it to him after.”
“All right.”
He picked up the newspaper too. At the door she put a hand on his cheek, briefly, the way she'd done when he was small enough to stand beneath her chin. He leaned down to hug her.
“Thanks for breakfast,” he said.
“Lunch.”
“Both.”
She let him go. He went down carrying his father's shirt, his father's paper and the address his mother had sent him. Mara stayed by the open door until he reached the bottom, then went back to the table to put away the needle.