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The first walk Cindy missed had been on a Thursday afternoon when the cold lay flat over Geneva and the road beside Jennifer’s lane had hardened into pale ridges beneath passing wheels.
Jennifer waited at the usual corner with both dogs. Nicola stood near her left leg, quiet beneath the thick winter coat nature had given her. Bart moved from one roadside smell to another, troubling the frozen grass with his nose and lifting one paw whenever the cold reached through the fur between his toes. Jennifer kept him from circling the post, unwound his lead once when he tried anyway, and looked down the road whenever a figure appeared between the bare trees.
None of them was Cindy.
Jennifer remained until the shadows from the houses reached the opposite verge. Then she turned toward home. Bart looked back twice, pulling enough that his lead straightened, but Jennifer didn’t wait again once the light had begun going.
Cindy missed the next walk too.
There had been no promise made in words. The girls had never decided that a certain day or hour belonged to them. They met because Cindy’s errands brought her near the lane, because Jennifer took the dogs out after the household’s midday work had settled, because one of them happened to reach the corner while the other was still within sight. Even so, a pattern had formed. Thursday was common. Saturday was almost certain unless the weather made the roads poor. Sometimes there was Tuesday, depending on what Cindy had been sent to fetch and whether Jennifer’s lessons or mending had run long.
On the Saturday after the second missed walk, Jennifer took Bart and Nicola along the usual route without stopping at the corner.
She didn’t go toward Cindy’s street.
The market incident had happened weeks before, and Cindy had walked with her several times afterward, though not with the same easy regularity. There had been errands, cold rain and one afternoon when Cindy appeared only long enough to tell Jennifer that her mother needed her at home. Jennifer had taken each absence as it came. She didn’t turn it into a quarrel Cindy had never made or an ending Cindy had never announced.
She noticed, though.
At home, the winter brought work inward. April kept the stove going in the front room during the day and moved smaller pieces of mending near it when the light allowed. Brandon checked the seams around the windows, pressed strips of folded cloth into two draughty places and spent one morning repairing the latch on the shed before snow could freeze it shut. Jennifer carried coal, practised her arithmetic at the kitchen table and helped April unpick the lining from a woman’s winter coat so it could be replaced without wasting the outer wool.
Bart disliked the confinement. He walked from the kitchen to the back door, from the back door to the front window and then to whichever person seemed most likely to change the shape of the day. Nicola slept near the stove until Bart stepped on the edge of her tail, whereupon she rose, crossed the room and lay down beside Jennifer’s chair.
Jennifer was working a row of small stitches through the coat lining when she looked toward April.
“Mama?”
April didn’t raise her head immediately. She had three straight pins held between her lips and was guiding a sleeve across her lap. When she reached the end of the seam, she put the pins into the cushion fixed around her wrist.
“Yes?”
“Would it be proper for me to call at Cindy’s house?”
April’s hands paused over the wool.
Jennifer kept her needle in the cloth. She didn’t fill the silence with reasons.
April looked toward her. “Has she asked you?”
“No.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
April studied her daughter’s face for a moment, then returned her attention to the sleeve. “You haven’t seen her.”
“Not for some walks.”
“How many?”
“Three that she might’ve come on.”
“That doesn’t mean she was meant to.”
“No.”
April drew the thread through and smoothed the seam with her thumb. “What would you be calling for?”
“To ask whether she may come walking.”
“Today?”
“Tomorrow, if she wants.”
April glanced toward the window. Snow from two days earlier remained in narrow patches along the fence, grey at the edges but firm where the sun hadn’t reached it. “You’d take the dogs?”
“Yes.”
“Both?”
Jennifer looked down at Bart. He had settled near her chair with his chin across one of her shoes. “I thought Bart should come.”
April followed her gaze.
Bart opened one eye.
“He’s more likely to get you kept at the door than invited past it,” April said.
“I don’t need to go past it.”
“No.”
April placed the sleeve aside. “Her people may not welcome an unannounced caller.”
“I know.”
“And her mother may think a walk is foolish if there’s work waiting.”
“I’ll ask after the work.”
April’s expression softened, though only slightly. “That’s better.”
Jennifer waited.
“You can go,” April said. “Not while they’re eating, and not so late they think you’ve come to stay through supper.”
“I thought after three.”
“Three’s all right.”
“Cindy said she sweeps in the afternoon.”
“Then don’t arrive before she’s had time.”
Jennifer nodded.
April picked up the coat sleeve again. “You ask her mother first if her mother answers. You don’t call past her into the house.”
“I won’t.”
“And if the answer’s no, it’s no.”
“Yes, Mama.”
April looked at her daughter once more. “Don’t make Cindy answer at the door with her mother standing there unless she’s invited to.”
Jennifer understood that too. “No.”
Bart lifted his head when Jennifer returned to her stitching, perhaps having recognized some word that suggested leaving the house. His tail struck the floor once.
“Not yet,” Jennifer told him.
He lowered his chin to her shoe again.
The following afternoon came clear and dry. The cold had sharpened overnight, sealing the mud beneath the roads and laying a thin skin of ice over the water in the ditches. Sunlight showed through the bare branches without softening anything. It struck the roofs, the fence wires and the upper windows of the houses with a white brightness that made the shadows look blue.
Jennifer finished her arithmetic, stacked her papers and helped April fold the repaired coat. She waited until the kitchen clock had passed three. Then she put on her heavier cardigan beneath her coat, wound a scarf twice around her neck and fastened both dogs’ leads.
Bart pushed against the door as soon as she opened it.
Jennifer held him back with one knee. “Wait.”
He stood trembling with impatience while Nicola remained behind him.
Jennifer stepped out first and kept the door narrow until Bart had come through under control. Nicola followed last. April watched from the kitchen, one hand resting on the back of a chair.
“Don’t stay if they’re busy,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“And be home before dark.”
“Yes, Mama.”
The door closed.
Bart tried to turn toward the usual corner. Jennifer guided him in the opposite direction.
He stopped and looked up at her.
“We’re going somewhere else.”
Bart accepted this after one more glance toward the familiar road. Nicola adjusted without hesitation, walking several feet behind until the lane widened enough for her to come beside Jennifer.
The route to Cindy’s house wasn’t strange. Jennifer had walked it before, carrying one end of the market parcel while Cindy held the other. She remembered the church, the row of houses with narrow yards and the gate that opened inward beside the Han home. She remembered the kitchen light falling over Cindy’s coat when the girl looked back before going inside.
In daylight the house appeared smaller than Jennifer recalled. It stood close to its neighbours but not crowded against them, with a narrow path leading from the gate to the porch. The front yard had been swept of fallen branches and winter litter. A pair of bare shrubs grew beneath the window, their twigs tied loosely against the wind. The curtains were drawn partway, letting light enter without exposing the whole front room.
Jennifer stopped outside the gate.
Bart moved toward it.
She shortened his lead before he could put his nose between the palings. “No.”
He looked through at the path.
Nicola stood behind Jennifer, her breath pale in the cold air.
Jennifer examined Bart’s clasp. Brandon had repaired the worn catch after the ditch, replacing it with a heavier one that closed fully over the collar ring. She turned it once, pulled against it and then checked the loop around her wrist. Nicola’s clasp was sound. Jennifer drew both dogs near enough that neither could enter if the gate shifted open.
Dust from the frozen road had settled over the toes of her shoes. She rubbed one against the back of the opposite ankle, then changed sides. The marks lightened but didn’t disappear. She bent and wiped the remaining pale dirt with the edge of her handkerchief, folding the cloth inward afterward so the clean portion remained hidden in her pocket.
Bart lowered his nose to a crack between two paving stones.
Jennifer straightened her scarf.
She opened the gate only far enough to step through, then turned and guided the dogs into the yard one at a time. Bart came first because holding him outside while bringing Nicola in would have given him too much room to pull. Jennifer kept him beside her, let Nicola pass and shut the gate immediately.
They stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.
Jennifer didn’t allow either dog to climb.
Bart stretched his neck toward the boards. A smell had caught between two of them, perhaps crumbs, old grease or an animal that had sheltered beneath the porch. Jennifer shortened the lead until his front paws remained on the frozen earth.
“Stay.”
She climbed alone and knocked.
The sound felt louder than she intended. Three firm taps carried into the house.
Bart lifted his head.
Jennifer waited.
She heard movement beyond the door, followed by a brief pause at the front window. The curtain shifted no more than an inch before settling.
The door opened.
Cindy’s mother stood inside.
Jennifer had seen Eun-jung from a distance at the market and once near the church, though they had never been introduced. She was shorter than Jennifer expected, with dark hair drawn back neatly and a wool cardigan buttoned over a high-collared blouse. Her face was composed, not unkind, though no invitation appeared in it. One hand remained on the inner door.
Jennifer lowered her head slightly.
It wasn’t a deep bow, nor an imitation made large enough to become spectacle. She had watched Cindy greet older Korean visitors outside the market, inclining her head before speaking. Jennifer repeated only what she had understood from it: respect given before familiarity had been earned.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.”
Eun-jung looked at her.
“Good afternoon.”
“My name is Jennifer.”
“I know.”
The answer didn’t embarrass Jennifer. A small town carried names ahead of people.
She kept her hands at her sides. “I’m sorry to call without being asked.”
Eun-jung’s eyes moved beyond her toward the dogs.
Bart had returned to the crack beneath the porch boards. His nose pressed low, and one paw had begun lifting toward the first step. Jennifer tightened the lead without looking back.
“I wanted to ask whether Cindy may come walking with us tomorrow afternoon, after she’s finished her work, if she wants to.”
Eun-jung’s gaze returned to Jennifer.
Jennifer waited.
“You ask me,” Eun-jung said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But Cindy chooses?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was no challenge in Jennifer’s answer. She didn’t offer an explanation that might make the phrasing sound cleverer than it was.
Eun-jung opened the door no farther.
“What work do you do?”
Jennifer understood that the question wasn’t about the walk. “Lessons in the morning. I help Mama with sewing and the house. Papa gives me arithmetic and reading.”
“You don’t attend school.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Why?”
Jennifer looked at Eun-jung directly. “My parents teach me.”
The older woman waited, perhaps expecting another reason. Jennifer didn’t give one. Cost lived inside many households without needing to be shown at the door.
“And when you walk,” Eun-jung said, “where do you go?”
“Usually along the road by our lane, past the open field if it’s dry, and back by the mill lane or the church road. We don’t go far out of town.”
“With no adult?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Eun-jung’s face remained unreadable. “Those dogs are yours?”
“Yes.”
Bart put his paw on the lower step.
Jennifer drew him back at once.
“He’s Bart,” she said. “The grey one is Nicola.”
Eun-jung looked toward Nicola.
The dog had been waiting several feet behind Jennifer, her body still and her lead hanging in a quiet curve. At the attention, Nicola raised her head. She didn’t move closer.
Eun-jung considered her before looking at Bart again.
“What happened to his first lead?”
“The clasp wore through.”
“He ran?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Into the road?”
“No. Into a field ditch.”
Eun-jung’s eyes settled upon Jennifer’s face once more. “Cindy told me.”
Jennifer nodded.
Bart’s nose returned to the porch crack. Whatever lay beneath it had become the central concern of his afternoon. He leaned forward, but Jennifer held the lead short enough that he couldn’t climb or scrape at the boards.
“He doesn’t stand still,” Eun-jung said.
“Not easily.”
“Then why bring him?”
Jennifer glanced back at Bart. “Cindy likes him.”
Eun-jung didn’t answer.
Jennifer remained on the upper step, the cold working gradually through the soles of her shoes. She didn’t move from one foot to the other. She didn’t look toward the windows for Cindy or listen deliberately for signs that she was inside.
Eun-jung looked over the yard again. Her attention rested on the closed gate, the dogs’ leads, Jennifer’s cleaned shoes and Bart’s controlled distance from the porch.
“What time?”
“After three, if that’s late enough.”
“Cindy sweeps after dinner.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The front room and kitchen.”
Jennifer nodded.
“She does the kitchen twice when flour has been used.”
“I understand.”
“You come after sweeping.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Not while she should be finishing.”
“No, ma’am.”
Eun-jung’s hand shifted on the door.
“Four o’clock,” she said. “Not before.”
Jennifer accepted the hour at once. “Yes, ma’am.”
“If Cindy says no, you leave her be.”
“Yes.”
“If the road is icy, she stays home.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And she comes back before dark.”
“I’ll bring her home.”
Eun-jung’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You bring her to the gate.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The older woman looked again toward Nicola.
This time the dog took one slow step forward.
Jennifer didn’t call her. Nicola stopped at the bottom of the porch, lifted her nose and smelled the cold air between herself and the doorway. Her tail remained low and still.
Eun-jung watched her for several seconds.
Nicola sat.
Bart turned, saw the other dog closer to the house and attempted to join her. Jennifer kept him beside the lowest step.
“He’ll learn,” Jennifer said quietly.
Eun-jung looked at Bart’s open face. “He should.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The door moved inward by a fraction.
Jennifer inclined her head again. “Thank you.”
She stepped down from the porch.
Bart followed immediately, relieved to be moving, though he twisted once to smell the lowest board as he passed it. Jennifer guided him away. Nicola rose and returned to her former place without being called.
Jennifer had reached the path when the floor inside the house creaked.
She looked back only because Eun-jung had not yet closed the door.
Cindy stood behind her mother.
She held a broom in both hands. The bristles rested against the floor near one shoe, and her sleeves had been turned back neatly from her wrists. Her hair was pinned away from her face, though a short piece had come loose near one temple. There was no coat on her, only a dark cardigan over her blouse.
For a moment neither girl spoke.
Cindy looked at Jennifer, then at Bart and Nicola waiting below the steps. Her fingers tightened slightly around the broom handle.
Jennifer didn’t step back toward the porch.
“I’ll come tomorrow at four,” she said.
Cindy glanced toward her mother.
Eun-jung remained beside the door.
“If you want to walk,” Jennifer added.
Cindy’s eyes returned to hers.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Jennifer nodded.
Bart had noticed Cindy now. His body leaned toward the house, his tail beginning a quick hard sweep behind him. Jennifer kept the lead short.
“He has to wait until tomorrow,” she said.
Cindy looked down at him. Her mouth softened.
Bart gave one small sound through his nose.
Jennifer didn’t let him climb the steps.
“I’ll see you then,” Cindy said.
“Yes.”
The visit had reached its end. Jennifer didn’t ask how Cindy had been, whether she had missed the dogs or why she hadn’t come to the corner. She didn’t turn the sight of the broom into permission to wait until the sweeping was over. She lowered her head once more to Eun-jung, then led Bart and Nicola toward the gate.
Cindy remained behind her mother with the broom upright between her hands.
Jennifer opened the gate, brought Nicola through and then Bart. She closed it securely before allowing either dog more length.
Bart looked back toward the house.
Cindy still stood in the doorway.
Jennifer turned for home.
The following afternoon she began preparing too early.
The kitchen clock had only passed three when Jennifer finished brushing the dust from Bart’s legs and checked Nicola’s paws. She put on her cardigan, then took it off when April looked toward the clock. She folded two cloths that didn’t need folding, moved a basket from the table to the shelf and sat near the stove with Bart’s lead over her lap.
Bart recognized it and became restless.
“Not yet,” Jennifer told him.
He went to the door.
Nicola remained by the stove.
At half past three, Jennifer fastened her coat.
April was cutting thread at the worktable. “You’ll be early.”
“I have to walk there.”
“Not half an hour’s walk.”
Jennifer looked toward the clock.
April didn’t smile at her. “You were told four.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Jennifer sat again.
Bart came from the door and pushed his head beneath her hand. She rubbed his ears, checked the repaired clasp and looked at the clock only when the minute hand had moved far enough to make the glance worthwhile.
At a quarter to four, April nodded toward the door.
“That should do.”
Jennifer stood.
She took both dogs outside, closed the gate and walked at a measured pace. Bart tried to hurry for the first street, perhaps remembering the house and the smell beneath its porch. Jennifer didn’t permit him to pull her ahead. Nicola followed near her leg, then moved beside her when they reached the broader road.
Jennifer knew the distance now. She crossed the church road at ten minutes before the hour and saw the Han house while the minute hand on the grocer’s clock still lacked several marks from four.
She slowed.
There was no need to stand outside the gate where Cindy might see her and feel hurried through the last of her work. Jennifer took the dogs once around the short block behind the house. Bart investigated a fence post, two wagon tracks and a clump of frozen grass. Nicola stopped to watch a sparrow beneath a hedge.
When Jennifer returned, the church bell began striking four.
She reached the Han gate after the final note.
The path had been swept.
Fine lines from the broom showed across the porch boards and the step. No dust remained in the corners near the door. Through the front window, the curtain was open enough to show the clean floor and the lower edge of a chair.
Jennifer stopped outside.
Bart looked toward the house.
Before she could open the gate, the front door moved.
Cindy stepped onto the porch wearing her coat, scarf and walking shoes. Her glasses caught the winter light. She turned back toward the doorway.
“I’ll be home before dark,” she said.
Eun-jung stood inside. “Stay off the ice.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And don’t let the dog pull you.”
Cindy looked toward Bart.
“I won’t.”
Eun-jung’s eyes moved to Jennifer. “The gate.”
“I’ll bring her to it,” Jennifer said.
The door closed.
Cindy came down the steps.
Jennifer kept Bart beside her until Cindy had opened the gate and stepped through. Then she let the lead lengthen.
Bart crossed the distance at once.
He didn’t jump, though his whole body moved around Cindy in an eager half-circle. He pressed his nose to her gloves, her coat and the hem of her skirt before standing against her leg. His tail struck the gate twice.
Cindy rested one hand on his head.
“You remembered.”
Bart leaned upward beneath her palm.
Nicola approached more slowly. She smelled Cindy’s shoes, moved close enough for her shoulder to touch the girl’s shin and then returned to Jennifer’s side.
Cindy looked down at the repaired clasp on Bart’s lead. “That’s new.”
“Papa fixed it.”
“Does it open?”
“Not unless somebody works at it.”
Cindy tested it with one gloved finger. The catch remained shut.
“Good.”
Jennifer held out the loop.
Cindy took it.
Bart moved immediately to her side.
The girls turned toward the road. Jennifer kept Nicola on her far side, while Cindy shortened Bart’s lead before he could cross in front of them.
For the first several steps neither spoke.
The cold had kept the street quiet. Smoke rose from chimneys. A thin crust of old snow remained in the shaded edges of the yards, marked here and there by bird feet and the narrow tracks of cats. The road itself was dry enough for walking.
Cindy looked ahead.
“I finished at ten minutes to four,” she said.
Jennifer glanced at her. “The sweeping?”
“Yes.”
“I came around the block.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“I didn’t want you to have to hurry.”
Cindy adjusted the lead when Bart turned toward a frozen puddle. “I didn’t.”
They reached the end of the street.
Bart lowered his nose to the road, found something beneath the winter dust and stopped. Cindy waited for him to finish rather than pulling immediately. When he raised his head, she brought him onward with one small movement of the lead.
Jennifer noticed.
Cindy looked toward her.
Neither girl explained the weeks between their walks. Jennifer didn’t ask Cindy to promise she would come again. Cindy didn’t apologise for staying away.
They turned toward the usual corner.
Bart moved between them, close enough that his lead hung slack in Cindy’s hand. Nicola walked on Jennifer’s far side, matching the girls’ pace as the four of them went on beneath the bare January trees.