Free Three Junes by Julia Glass

choosing the lanes too narrow for cars, where an occasional donkey saunters by and the same interchangeable old women sit at their spinning wheels each morning, wearing black but spinning white. They grin at the tourists who take their pictures and wish everyone a good day. Today one of them waves at Paul as if she knows him. He waves back.
    THE MORNING AFTER Maureen’s funeral, when Paul opened the door to the library, Fenno looked up from Paul’s desk. Without betraying the slightest surprise or guilt, he held up the deed to the house. “Are you selling it?” Fenno’s voice was neutral, almost bemused.
    “I don’t know.” Along with other papers, the deed had been in a folder tucked into the side of the blotter.
    “Davey and Dennis would be crushed.”
    “I know that. I’m not ignoring their sentiments. And you?”
    Fenno laughed. “Do I have a say? I live across an ocean.”
    “If you told me that coming here just once a year made a difference in your life, that would matter. It’s not that I can’t afford to stay.” Paul crossed the room to stand between the desk and the windows. Snow, falling swiftly, filled the room with a crisp even light. In it, Fenno looked pale and tired, and though Paul knew that he and his brothers had been up until dawn, talking and drinking, he couldn’t help trying to assess Fenno’s well-being. Would he be doing this constantly now? The thought exhausted him deeply.
    As if guessing at the scrutiny, Fenno swiveled the chair and stood. The wall he now faced was covered with newspaper cuttings, award-winning stories in staggered states of acidic decay. The oldest, written when Paul was in his twenties, would have crumbled to dust if removed from their frames.
    Fenno leaned close to one of the cuttings. “‘Mill Saw Tragedy Reversed.’” He read to himself for a moment, then turned to his father. “Dad, this is gruesome stuff.”
    “It’s medical reporting, Fenno. It’s not sensationalism.” Paul smiled. He knew that Fenno was looking at a grainy photograph of an arm which, once severed, had been successfully reattached. The article had been one in a series on the kind of plastic surgery that had nothing to do with vanity. Paul remembered watching a seven-hour surgery in which a young girl’s fingers were meticulously re-fused to her hand, one spidery vein at a time. The surgeon’s talent made him think of the patient rigor of Old World embroidery.
    Fenno turned to other articles, here and there smiling or raising an eyebrow. Paul knew that his chance to speak honestly was now or probably never.
    Fenno walked back to the desk and picked up a packet of letters that had been in the folder with the deed. “What you do with the house is up to you, but you’re not getting rid of the collies.”
    Two months ago, Maureen had given away three yearling puppies, but that left six dogs to care for. Two were trial champions; the others shared their bloodlines. The letters Fenno held were from Maureen’s files and contained the addresses of local farmers she had sold to in the past and other breeders she trusted. Paul had planned to invite them by, to take the dogs off his hands.
    Paul lost his patience. “Oh, all right, so you, I suppose, you plan to take them back to New York and keep them in your city flat. Run them in some car park every day. Take them along to the shop so they don’t destroy your armchairs out of boredom.”
    Fenno ignored his anger. “David can take two. We talked about it last night. And yes, Dad, I can take one; I’ll take Rodgie because he’s the youngest; he’ll do best on the flight. And the others . . . you have the space if you stay.”
    “Well, I might want to travel. I might want to . . .”
    “You can find someone to look after them when you’re gone. Pay that farm foreman over at Conkers to take them.”
    “What if I’ve never cared for these dogs?”
    “As likely as your never caring for Mum.”
    Paul leaned into the window bay.