He slides the plate a finger closer, an invitation shaped like manners. I cut the cake with the edge of my fork and set a small piece on his saucer before taking one for myself, because sharing makes the table honest.
"She said hair remembers how it was held in a ribbon," I murmur. "A clean part makes a clean mind."
His eyes listen the way good rooms do. "My mother crossed thresholds with two fingers on the lintel," he says. "Kept salt by the door and a match in the samovar lid. A house should be ready to forgive and ready to light."
We don't speak of altars or men who carry guns under good suits. We let the tea set the pace, and we talk about older things. He asks what song my grandmother liked for washing days, and I hum the first bar without thinking. He answers with the last bar in a voice so low the China seems to hear it before I do, and a small, steady happiness rises.
He asks which fairy tales my grandmother loved, and I tell him about the boy who forgets his name and learns it again in front of a door not meant for him. He nods as if he expected that, then shares a fisherman's prayer for hard weather. Words like "rope" when the sea reminds you you're small. I hum the first line of the lullaby my grandmother crooned. He finishes it, voice low.
The room holds us like a well-loved book. Porcelain meets porcelain. Outside, the light tilts slateward as the first flakes test the street. My cup warms both hands.
"My grandmother used to make honey cake," I say, touching the glazed edge with my fork. "She cut it with a string because she said knives tell too much truth."
"Your grandmother was a wise woman," he says.
"She was a collection of sharp corners dressed as a tea cozy," I say, and he lets himself smile, a small one that wouldn't survive the cold outside. A warmth surges in my chest, something I fold like linen.
He is careful with his words. I watch the care because it tells me more than the words do. He doesn't touch the honey cake until I lift my fork. He doesn't reach toward my cup, but he inches the little pot of more honey into my line of sight in case I want sweetness on my own terms.
"You said your mother left you a prayer," I say, letting the question settle where the warmth has already made room. "Do you still say it?"
His eyes go quiet without going far. He rubs the cup's edge with his thumb, speaking like each syllable costs something.
"She taught me, ‘Brow, so you remember to think. Chest so you remember to love. Shoulder and shoulder so you remember you are held.'"
Heat rises behind my eyes, gentle and known like a hearth lit long before I walked in, waiting only for someone to sit beside it. I lower my gaze to the steam curling between us, soft as a thread pulled through time. His hands are steady on the porcelain, the scar at his thumb pale with age. It looks like something once mended.
His phone lights once against the wood, a small square of winter. And then again when he picks it up. He doesn't apologize. He writes a single line with his thumb, places the phone face down so the glow disappears, and lifts his cup.
"What was that?" I ask, because I'm trying to be honest with the room I'm in.
"Nothing that belongs to this table," he says, and his mouth tilts a fraction.
So we go back to old stories and old prayers, and for a moment, I see past the suits and the guards and the reputation that moves down hallways ahead of his boots. I see a boy who learned to keep time with prayer. I see a man who would like to build a room where promises are not threatened by drafts.
He asks about my scar, his eyes dropping to the tiny burn in my palm. His fingertip hovers, not touching.
"Here," I say, turning my hand to show the tiny burn in my palm, a pearl of old fire. "From vigil candles when I was a girl. I held the match too long and wouldn't blow it out.Babushkapinched the wick and said, "Learn the heat." He nods.
I choose a second pot of tea. I choose to stay for it. He leans a little back, not retreat, permission. Steam writes a pale script on the glass. Outside, the snow has become more insistent, flurries deciding to be a fall. The bell tells the street every time the door opens, and still the heat holds.
We step out together without making an announcement. The cold finds our faces, and the snow patterns the wool of my sleeves. The city is almost empty. The low winter sun pours its small gold onto the falling white. We turn east because neither of us is in a hurry to hand the day back to its schedules.
Our steps fall in time without any effort. Our breaths make clouds that meet and drift apart and meet again. A bicycle glides by, the chain keeping a clean, steady music, the kind that pretends it has forgotten how to slip.
We talk mostly about things that don't require choosing. The best translation of a line from Pasternak. He asks me how many languages I speak. I say four. He talks about the way Boston pretends to be small when it wants to hide. Whether honey is better in tea or on bread. He says tea. I say bread. He considers this as if it reveals character. I touch the crucifix at my throat just once and feel the small, familiar weight find the notch above my heart. He sees the gesture and doesn't comment. I decide I like his style of silence.
At the corner, the wind turns and lifts a little of my hair. I reach up to smooth it. His hand moves and stops. There is a part of me that wants the touch. It rises fast and clean as the arc of a bird changing direction midair. Another part, olderand stubborn, sets its feet. Our hands hover for a second, then both drop. The moment folds itself and tucks into my pocket like a note I will reread later.
We keep walking. The world is blue and gold and white. We don't speak for two blocks. It is not awkward. It is honest. My boots squeak on the clean parts of the snow and thud on the parts where people have gone before me. His steps are almost silent. He is that man.
At the square where we usually turn toward the river, he asks, without making it a question, if I would like the long way back. I say yes because the long way is a choice that belongs to me, and because I'm beginning to understand that he will walk as far as I ask and no farther.
By the time we reach Beacon Hill, the snowfall has softened into a steady curtain. The gas lamps wear small white hats. The iron fence around our steps holds beads of ice like a necklace that belongs to nobody. I stop outside the door because I want a second to keep this and once I go in, the house will put its hands back on my shoulders. He doesn't say anything that would ruin the quiet by naming it gratitude. I tilt my face up, let a single flake melt on my lip, and then I go inside.
The marble in the foyer holds the chill the way marble always does. A faint trace of incense lingers from the chapel. The house guard nods, eyes on my shoulder instead of my face. My heart hums a song, one it refused to sing so long, I forgot it lived inside me.
The day moves easily. I meet Reza, trade lists and smiles, and leave with jokes. I buy bread, oranges, a small fist ofwhite flowers. I make a note to check mittens and caps. I sleep lightly and a sound wakes me.
