They stood in that shared silence until the piano player—Mrs. Whitaker's nephew, earnest and slightly off-key—started something slow and waltz-adjacent. Ruth glanced at her fiddle, then at Walt.
"I should play," she said. "That's what they paid me in pie and gratitude for."
"Play," Walt said. "I'll listen."
She did. She stood near the center of the barn where the string lights gathered brightest and drew the bow across the new string as if testing a promise. The first notes were careful; then they opened into something older than the barn, a reel that made even the teenagers stop chasing each other. Walt leaned against a post and watched her. The cream dress moved when she moved. The cropped suede jacket caught the lantern gold. Brown smoky liner framed eyes that closed now and then when the music asked for it. He thought of Eleanor and did not look away from Ruth, and the two thoughts sat beside each other in his chest without canceling each other out, which was a kind of miracle he had not expected at thirty-seven on a Thanksgiving night in a half-empty barn.
Margaret found him again during a break in the set. "You're staring."