Arthur stood. He buttoned his coat. He looked at the blinds and the stripes they made, softer now, the rain still deciding.
"Helen was right about the room," he said. "It isn't a jail. It's just a room that thinks it knows what people are about to do. Today it didn't."
In the lot, the Subaru beeped its small recognition. None of them got in at once. The mist had flattened Ruth's hair and beaded on Caleb's jacket and found the skipped logic of Arthur's collar and been denied, because today the buttons were right. Arthur looked down Market Street, toward the diner, toward the four blocks he had walked when he would not choose a car.
"I'm not hungry for pie," he said. "I want to go home and look at the gutter. I want to see if the branch stays where Luis put it. That's a small want. I've spent the week on large ones. A small one would be a vacation."
"I'll drive," Caleb said.
"Ruth rides in front," Arthur said. "I'll take the back. I took the back on the way here. Fair is fair. Don't argue. My genius for arrangements is the only genius left and I intend to exercise it."
Ruth rode in front. It felt, for the first mile, like a theft, and then it felt like a seat. Caleb drove the way he always drove, a little under the limit, as if the town had trusted him with its children once and he had not entirely given the trust back. Arthur watched the fields. The hawks were elsewhere. He did not hold it against them.
At the house the gutter held. The branch, trimmed, did not tick. Water ran where water was supposed to run, a modest miracle of angles. Arthur stood in the yard without a coat collar to hide in and looked up long enough that Ruth moved to his elbow, not touching, available. He did not need the elbow. He said so by staying on his feet.