"No. She caught him in about four minutes."
"How?"
"Because your papa couldn't lie. He was the worst liar in the whole state of Minnesota. She said, 'Tommy, did you do your spelling homework?' and he said, 'Yes, ma'am,' and then he turned bright red and said, 'Actually I'm Danny and Tommy didn't do it.'"
Lila stared at him. Nora stared at him. And then, from somewhere down in the bottom of her daughter, came a sound Nora had not heard in a very long time: a short, startled, helpless laugh.
"That's Papa," Lila said. "That's what Papa does."
"Yeah," said Tom. His voice had gone rough again. "That's what he did."
Lila looked at her mother. Her socks had to be freezing on the porch boards. She was shivering. "Can he come in?"
Nora looked at Tom. He was looking at the porch floor, waiting, the way he had waited on the platform. Not asking. She thought of Bea. Watch whether she can tell them apart.
"Twenty minutes," Nora said. "And then he has to go."
"Thirty."
"Twenty, Lila."
"Twenty-five."
"Twenty," said Nora, and opened the door.
He stayed twenty-two minutes. He sat on the very edge of the couch with his big chapped hands on his knees and let Lila show him the book tower, and the pocket tin, and her drawing of the solar system with Saturn's rings colored in purple. He did not touch anything unless she handed it to him. When she held up the brass wing nut and said, "This was the last one," he held it on his palm for a long time and then gave it back without saying anything, and Lila put it back in the tin on top of everything else, and closed the lid.
At the door he said, "Thanks, Nora," and Lila said, "Will you come back tomorrow?" and he looked at Nora and Nora said, "We'll see," which all three of them knew meant something, though none of them could have said what.
* * *
He did not go back to Louisiana.
He told Nora so on Saturday, standing at the bottom of her porch steps, not on them. He had gotten work at Coyle's Marina, down on the flats south of the station, hauling sailboats out for the winter and shrink-wrapping them in white plastic. Old Pete Coyle paid cash and didn't ask questions. It would last a few more weeks. The Miss Corinne didn't need him back until the middle of December.