"The gig ended," Ruth said into his shoulder. "They offered me more. I said no. Not because I was scared. Because I kept finishing songs and hearing this place in the rests. Because I left a phrase open in January and I want to close it here."
Walt leaned back enough to see her face. "I got good at dancing with a broom. Fair warning."
"I'll teach the left one first," Ruth said. "Again."
They ate the pie on the porch as dusk came down. Ruth told him about Denver in fuller detail—the good rooms and the lonely ones, the way ambition could feel like hunger and like homesickness at the same time. Walt told her about the sunflowers and the porch step and the letters he had not known how to end. When the mosquitoes found them, they went inside. Ruth set her fiddle case beside Eleanor's in the living room, two quiet guests sharing a corner, and neither of them pretended it was accidental.
"Is this strange?" Ruth asked. "Her case and mine?"