Messenger - Lois Lowry [34]
He tried to recall how long it had taken him to recover. He had slept, he knew. Yes. He remembered that he had slept for the afternoon, glad that the blind man had not been at home to ask why. But he had arisen before dinner—weary, still, but able to hide it, to eat and talk as if nothing had happened.
So his recovery had taken only a few hours, really. Still, it had been a puppy. Well, a puppy and its mother. Two dogs. He had fixed—cured? saved?—two dogs in late morning, and recovered from it by the end of the day.
"Matty? You're not listening! You're half asleep!" Kira's laughter was warm and sympathetic.
"I'm sorry." He put the last bit of bread into his mouth and looked apologetically at her.
"You're both tired. Look at Frolic."
He glanced over and saw the puppy sound asleep, curled into a mound of undyed yarn heaped near the door, as if the soft pile were a mother to doze against.
"I have work to do in the garden, Matty. The coreopsis needs staking and I've not had a chance to get to it. You lie down and get some rest, now, while I'm outside. Later we can talk. And you can go into the village and find your friends, for a visit."
He nodded and went to the couch to lie down on top of the knitted blanket that she had thrown across it. In his mind, he was counting the days they had left. He would explain to her that there was no time to visit with old pals.
He watched, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, as she took his bowl to the sink, placed it there, and then, leaning on her stick, gathered some stakes from a shelf, and a ball of twine. With her garden tools she turned to go outdoors. The twisted foot dragged in its familiar way. He had known everything about Kira for so long: her smile, her voice, her merry optimism, the amazing strength and skill of her hands, and the burden of her useless leg.
I must tell you this, Matty thought before he slept. I can fix you.
14
To his amazement, Kira said no. Not no to leaving—he hadn't suggested that to her, not yet—but a definite, unarguable no to the idea of a straightened, whole leg.
"This is who I am, Matty," she said. "It is who I have always been."
She looked at him fondly. But her voice was firm. It was evening. The fire glowed in the fireplace and she had lit the oil lamps. Matty wished that the blind man were in the room with them, playing his instrument, because the soft, intricate chords always brought a peace to their evenings together and he wanted Kira to hear the music, to feel the comfort it brought.
He had not yet told her that she was to return with him. During their supper together, as Kira chattered about the changes in the old village, how much better things were now, he had only half listened. In his mind he had been weighing what to tell her and when and how. There was so little time; and he needed, Matty knew, to present it to her in a decisive and convincing way.
But suddenly he heard her make a casual comment about her handicap. She was describing a small tapestry she had embroidered as a wedding gift for her friend Thomas, the woodcarver, who had recently been married.
"It was all finished and rolled up, and I decorated it with flowers," she said, "and on the morning of the wedding I set out, carrying it. But it had rained, and the path was wet, and I slipped and dropped the tapestry right into a mud puddle!" Kira laughed. "Luckily it was still early, so I came back here and was able to clean it. No one ever knew.
"My leg and stick are a nuisance when it's wet outdoors," she said. "My stick has never learned to navigate mud." She reached over to the pot and began to pour more tea into their mugs.
Surprising himself, he blurted it out. "I can fix your leg."
The room fell completely silent except for the hiss and crackle of the fire. Kira stared at Matty.
"I can," he said after a moment. "I have a gift. Your father says that you do, too, so you'll understand."
"I do," Kira agreed. "I always