Something in Maisie eased at that. He felt it in the way her shoulder settled against his for a breath, then lifted again to pour Rachel more chocolate.
Conversation turned; plates changed hands again; Joseph and Lilly negotiated a truce over a fallen Bath bun that involved Joseph breaking it in half and Lilly pretending she had not wanted the larger piece anyway.
When the clatter had softened and the tea had gone to refilling rather than pouring, Chawa rose. No glass; no script. She set one palm flat on the linen, as if feeling for the bones of the table itself.
“Genug geredt,” she said—enough talking. “Time for abrokhe, a blessing.”
Silence gathered itself.
She looked to Maisie and Felix. “Zol eyer hoyz zayn ful mit likht un gelekhter,” she said, the old words worn smooth by use. “May your house be full of light and laughter.Zol Ihr zan gezunt un mit mazl—health and luck—and mit kind un mit sholem—children and peace.” Her gaze ticked to Deena, then to John. “Un zol ir keynmol nit hobn moyre tsu zayn vi ir zent—may you never fear being exactly who you are.”
She reached across and, with a practicality that always undid him, straightened Maisie’s napkin. “Nu,” now, she said, softer. “Ests.” Eat.
It let everyone breathe again; a few throats were cleared; Nick made a show of examining a potted trout to dislodge the lump in his. Felix looked toward the window so no one had to see him do the same.
Later—after second cups and small slices of cake, after Prince Stan promised letters to Vienna and Warsaw and somewhere else entirely “where a certain man’s name will not open doors for quite a while,” after Raphi’s boy fell asleep under the table with Lilly’s chin on his knee—people began to stand in ones and twos. The brothers kissed their mother’s cheek; Andre promised to check Felix’s wound “only if you let it be a wound and not a trophy”; Wendy warned Alfie about the dangers of experimental tooth powder with the seriousness of a sermon.
Felix stayed where he was. He liked rooms most in the hour when a party exhaled—chairs askew, cups forgotten, the air warm with everything that had been said. Maisie laid a hand over his where it rested on the arm of the chair and looked at the chaos with a satisfaction that had nothing to do with tidiness.
“Stay for a minute,” she said.
“I’m not moving,” he answered. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Which doctor?”
“The one I married.”
A quiet beat held between them. The park beyond the glass was a calmer green now; a boy in a cap chased a hoop along the path and fell laughing when it outran him. Someone along Piccadilly shouted for a cab. The city did what cities always do: it went on.
Rachel drifted by and touched Felix’s shoulder. “You’ll bring her tomorrow?”
“To Harley Street? Try to stop her,” he said.
“Not to Harley Street,” Rachel returned, eyes kind. “To choose fabric. Married women must attend to terrifying matters.” She flicked a glance at Maisie’s sleeve. “You, my dear, are now obligated to own at least one gown that is entirely impractical.”
“I just owned five years of impracticality,” Maisie said. “I’m thinking stout serge.”
“Silk,” Rachel decreed, and vanished with a laugh.
Felix reached for his cup and found it empty. Maisie topped it off without asking—tea, not coffee—and set it back in his hand. He watched the steam rise, thinking briefly of a small courtyard and peonies and the plop of water against stone; of a boy’s thin, furious voice on the steps of Westminster; of the weight of a promise all those years ago.
“Faivish,” she said.
He looked up.
She didn’t speak immediately. She simply placed her palm over his wrist, feeling for his pulse with the same steady touch she had used the first time he kissed her breathless in a Vienna hallway. Her face softened, as if the gesture reassured her.
“Still here,” he said.
“Still here,” she answered.
Joseph snored softly under the table. Lilly, offended by the indignity of someone sleeping during what might yet be a meal, slid out, stretched, and put both front paws on Felix’s boot.
“You’ve a friend,” Maisie said.
“I have a house full of them,” he answered. “That’s grand.”
“I dare say.” She smiled. “Finally visible.”
