Walter stood in the dark kitchen with the phone cord looped around his wrist.
The question hit clean.
No dodge room.
He answered honestly because she deserved that.
“Both.”
Claire was quiet.
Then she said, “Thank you.”
Walter frowned.
“For what?”
“For not pretending this is simpler than it is.”
He leaned against the wall.
The house smelled faintly of tea and old wood and the ghost of sheep feed that never truly left.
Claire went on.
“I still think you should consider selling the lower field. I still think you are one hard winter from needing more help than you’ll ask for. But I also know what your voice sounded like after Mom died. And I know what it sounds like now.”
Walter swallowed.
He had not expected mercy.
“That don’t mean I’m right.”
“No,” Claire said. “But it means you’re alive.”
The lambs arrived on a drizzly Thursday.
Three little things.
All knees and bleating.
One white.
One mottled brown.
One black-faced and furious at the world.
Laney cried when she saw them.
June immediately started a feeding chart.
Miguel checked every latch twice.
Eli stood inside the pen Walter had once sworn would never hold sheep again and looked like someone had handed him a future he was afraid to touch.
Walter did not go in at first.
He stood outside the rail with both hands over the top board and let the sound of them hit him.
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