Lute by Jennifer Thorne

Author:Jennifer Thorne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

10:30 A.M.

I hear the comforting cadence of chitchat in the kitchen and follow it downward, my hand trailing behind me along the wainscoting. I pick out Jo before I open the door, that copper kettle voice of hers. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, along with Marit, who’s been bundled into a thick sweater, my coat hanging neatly folded over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Why hadn’t I thought to bring her a sweater when we came in? Shock, maybe, like Hugh said, or maybe I’ve just always been a useless hostess.

Taker. Leech.

Shut up.

Jo has a canvas bag at her feet full of clothes. She glances at me with a soft smile. “I heard. Caught out in her pajamas.” She nods at the bag. “Good of you to bring her here.”

“We went to yours first.” There’s a note of accusation in my voice.

I’m a raw nerve today. Wonder why.

“I was checking on the old blokes down at the pub.”

“Oh.” I smile. “They’re drinking already?”

She shakes her head. “They gave it a jolly good go, but too many memories of last time. And Matty came and told us about John and the others.”

She reaches out and takes Marit’s hand. Marit squeezes back, grateful, and I marvel again at how natural Jo is. She doesn’t seem to feel any separation between herself and others, even strangers. Any reserve is for the sake of politeness. She gives so freely of herself. It’s such work for me to open up to people, like putting on a mask instead of removing one.

“He was helpful,” I say. Jo cocks her head. “Matthew.”

“He is helpful. To a fault.” She sighs. “He told me you came to get him. I think he’d have stayed up there with them all day if you hadn’t pulled him out.”

I think for a second that the “them” she’s talking about are the strange assortment of machines littering his bedroom, but then I remember the photos, the way he’d sat slumped over the table like he was hoping to fall into the images.

His wife. His daughter. Today is an anniversary for him, the next tithing day after the one that took them. Jo said “pulled” him out as if I’d rescued Matthew from something, but now I feel a fresh stab of guilt. He was mourning them in peace, and I interrupted.

“He said you saw his contraptions.” Jo’s mouth quirks.

“The machines?” I rub my eyes, too tired to fully commit to feigned obliviousness. “I shouldn’t have asked him about them. An American, prying about the war effort of all things. Just what he needed today.”

“You’re not that kind of American,” Sally interrupts from the stove.

I crane my neck to smile at her. “Thank you?”

Jo nudges me with her shoulder, but it’s Marit who pipes up.

“No, I know what she means. There are Americans who go and see the world and move to different places. They’re … I don’t know, they have a certain positive thing that is nice, people like it or don’t like it.

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