“Was that for Father?”
Maisie nodded. “And for Faivish.”
Deena smiled faintly. “He liked rose and jasmine?”
“He liked whatever I brought him.” Maisie’s voice dipped lower, as if the words were too old to speak aloud.
There’d been a day—one ordinary morning—when she’d tripped slightly as she set the tray down, nearly spilling the cups. Faivish had caught her wrist to steady her and said, “You’re perfect.” Then he cleared his throat and said, “perfectly pretty today, Maisie.”
She hadn’t known what to do with the words. She’d just stood there, blushing like a fool, until he looked away. What a fool she was to let him go all those years ago.
She stirred the tea again, slower now.
The memory slid against her ribs.
“What’s wrong with it?” Deena asked, watching her.
Maisie hesitated. “Nothing.”
Everything.
“You probably don’t remember,” she said instead. “But in Vienna, we never had tea after dinner. It was a mid-morning habit—just before the sun got too high.”
Deena shook her head. “I was little. I remember… playing outside. Not tea.”
Maisie smiled faintly. “You used to come back in just before dusk. Always with dirt on your knees and bits of grass in your hair.”
Deena tilted her head. “Was that when you started helping Father? With his patients?”
“Yes. He didn’t teach me per se. I just learned—watched him, listened. I knew which tools he needed before he asked. How he liked his instruments laid out. I learned to see when he was thinking, andwhen he needed silence.”
Deena studied her. “And were you Faivish’s nurse, too?”
The question dropped so softly it shouldn’t have hurt. But it did.
Maisie’s breath caught—not sharply, but as though the air had thickened. She looked down into her cup. The tea had gone darker than her thoughts.
“Yes,” she said. “I brought him tea. And towels. He was always working. Always focused. I’d bring the tray while you were outside, and he’d give me that quiet smile like he hadn’t known he was thirsty until I appeared.”
She didn’t say what else she’d brought him. Or how many times she’d waited until the house quieted and slipped out again.
She could still feel the rough plaster of the courtyard wall beneath her palms. The sharp scent of the rose bush leaning over the rain barrel. And Faivish always waiting for her.
She’d asked him once to teach her how to kiss. He’d laughed softly, then did.
And every time after had felt like the world narrowed to that one stolen kiss between them.
There were moments they hadn’t spoken at all. Just the warmth of his fingers lacing through hers in the dark.
“I remember the night we left Vienna,” Deena said, her voice a little smaller. “Father wouldn’t let me outside. He said there was danger in the streets before you came home.”
Maisie nodded, her hand tightening around the cup. “There was.”
What she remembered wasn’t the violence—not as the first memory of that dreadful night. It was Faivish’s face, lit by candlelight in the practice cellar, the fear buried under calm. She remembered how he held her that last time—too tightly, as if letting go would make the world collapse.
And then it had. So terribly even that Father’s heart stopped as if he couldn’t bear a world so cruel anymore.
She blinked down at her tea. The color was wrong. Flat. Like ink left too long in water.
