The Window Keeps Count

Three taps in the sash. One of them came wrong.

Mina set the tea tin on June's table and took off her gloves before anyone asked. The room had the after-supper smell of starch, tea, and wet wool, and the window at the far end kept giving that thin metal knock as if a nail inside the frame wanted out.

Her left thumb bent at the second joint when she pressed the latch. She had dropped a glass cover on it at fifteen, and the finger still took its own time with hard work. Mina turned the latch once, twice, then a third time, because the screw in the catch always lied at first. The brass was nicked on the edge, bright where June's rag had worn it. On the sill, the painted wood had a pale streak where a plant pot had sat for years and moved at last. Mina set her tea tin square beside the cup ring on the table, then nudged it a finger-width to the left and left it there.

June stood at the stove with the enamel kettle on the back ring. The kettle had a blue chip at the spout and a hairline crack in the lid knob, and it gave a small tick each time the water rolled under it. Otis was not in the room yet. Good. Fewer questions before the work began.

Mina unrolled her tool cloth. Two screwdrivers, a stub of beeswax, the bent brass shim, a fold of oiled paper. The shim lay under the screws like a spare tooth, bent at one corner from some other job. She touched every piece in order, a habit that made the room quieter in her hands, then looked back at the sash. The sound came again, three taps, one late. The late one always left the room off by a tooth.

Mina put her coat on the peg, straightened the peg itself after that, and folded her gloves over the chair back with the fingers lined up. Nobody had asked. That was the point. If a thing sat crooked, it asked for more crookedness. If the latch sat loose, it asked for a whole night of asking. Mina pressed the cup ring once with her thumb, then stopped.

June did not hurry her.

'Leave it a crack,' she said.

Mina took a strip of brown paper from the tea tin, tucked it under the lower sash, and shut the window a hair's width. The rattle went silent. Otis, who had been leaning on the hall frame, came to the doorway with one sock twisted on his foot and his hair flattened on one side. He gave the room the full, square stare he used for puzzles and spilled syrup. Mina kept her thumb on the latch. The paper held for two counts. Then the frame cooled, the latch gave one hard knock, and the sound came back with a smaller edge.

'Again,' Otis said.

'Again is not a plan,' Mina said.

'It is if it works.'

The line would have pleased her, if it had come from anyone else. Otis crossed to the table and set a paper boat beside the sugar bowl. The boat had one damp fold from the sink. Mina lifted the boat, set it dry on the napkin, and pushed the napkin flat under her palm before Otis could wrinkle it further. Her hand did that without a word. It always had.

June turned the kettle and poured. The water struck the tea leaves with a dry brown smell. Mina turned back to the sash, set the paper aside, and tried the lower hinge instead. Her screwdriver slipped once on old paint, then found the slot. The screw moved a breath. No more. Not yet. The sash gave one soft knock, almost polite, and Otis counted it with one finger.

'Two,' he said. 'Then one.'

He had made the taps into numbers. That was good for him. Bad for the room, perhaps. Bad for Mina too, because now every tap had a place and she had to admit the place might stay where it was until she opened the frame properly and did the job that would make the house complain.

June put the kettle back on its ring. The lid ticked once, then settled. Mina kept her face on the wood and her hands busy. She did not want the window to become one of those things that lived on bad manners all evening.