This time the voice was small and came from about the level of his left elbow. He turned. Ruby was standing there in her purple coat with her sketchbook clutched to her chest, looking not at him but at Iris, with an expression he couldn't name. He had told her to stay on the bench. He had held up one finger. He opened his mouth to say so and then didn't, because in the middle of everything else it seemed like a small rule.
"Hi, Rube."
"You're not supposed to call him James," Ruby said to Iris. She said it shyly but clearly, the way she answered questions in class when she was sure she was right. "He's my dad."
Petra made a small sound. James started to say something, anything, to smooth it over before the floor tilted again. But Iris only leaned forward on the bench and looked at Ruby with enormous pleasure, her whole face opening up like a window thrown wide.
"Well, look at you," she said. "Look at you. Purple. Like a little plum." She glanced at James with a sly, delighted air. "You didn't tell me you'd brought her."
"I—"
"Of course his daughter calls him Dad, sweetheart, what else would she call him? Come here. Let me see you." Iris held out both hands, and Ruby, to James's astonishment, went to her without hesitating, and put her sketchbook under one arm, and let the old woman hold her mittened hands and look her over. "Oh, you've got his ears," Iris said. "Poor thing. You'll grow into them. He did, mostly."
"I know," said Ruby gravely. "You told me last time."
There was a pause.
"Last time," James said.
Ruby looked at him over her shoulder. It was the look she gave him when she had broken something and was deciding whether to tell. "She's been here before," she said. "Mrs. Bird. On Saturdays. When you were on the ladder."