“I’ve got it,” Scottie says immediately, reaching for it.
“I can wash a dish,” I say, keeping hold.
“I know you can,” he says. “But I’m already doing these, so—”
“Scottie.”
He stops. Meets my eyes.
“Let me help,” I say. “We’re compromising, remember?”
He hesitates. I can see the argument forming, and then he swallows it and steps aside.
“Okay,” he says. “You dry?”
“I can do that.”
We slip into an easy rhythm—him washing, me drying, putting things away.
It’s stupidly normal.
I’ve watched my mother do this with staff, never with my father. I’ve never done it with anyone.
The domesticity of it sinks under my skin, hot and aching.
I always thought I’d end up like her. Like my grandmother. A wife in a gilded cage. Beautiful dress, practiced smile, shaking hands with the right people, speaking when spoken to, never truly heard.
But here I am, married in name only, drying dishes in a borrowed life that feels more real than my own ever did.
“In all honesty…” he asks, breaking our comfortable dishwashing silence. “How was the wedding?”
“It was more than I expected or deserved.”
He shoulder-bumps me lightly. “Come on… there had to be something that was missing.”
Her face comes to mind instantly. Of course there is something missing… more like, someone. “My mother,” I say simply. “She was missing.”
“I’m sorry, Kat. I have no idea what that feels like to lose your mother so young.”
I shrug because there’s nothing else to say. “Then again… I’m not sure that marrying a stranger to trick my grandmother and father to dodge an arranged marriage was something I would have wanted her to witness, either.”
“What was your favorite memory of her?” he asks, and then I realize that no one ever asked that question before.
They always feel sorry for me and try to change the subject to something less morbid and sad. Scottie’s different–he leans into the uncomfortable. He leans in to learn more about me. Everything about him is a surprise.
I smile as I think of one of the most special memories of my mother. “Well, she was an American living in a different world, so she loved sharing part of that world with me when she could. There was an old theater outside of Moscow that she used to take me to. They only played old Hollywood movies, and whenever an Audrey Hepburn film would be playing, she would take me—just the two of us, and she would buy me this candy that had a Little Red Riding Hood on it. I think I’ve seenRoman Holidayat least thirty times. It was her favorite.”
I look up to find him smiling over at me. “She loved you,” he says simply, and it’s the truest statement I’ve ever heard.
“Yes… she did.”
When we’re finished, he checks his watch.
“Gym with the guys,” he says. “Then physical therapy, then a meeting about a sponsorship. I’ll be back for dinner.”
I have no idea which of his three dinners he means. I decide not to ask.
He heads toward his room, pauses. “My number’s on the fridge,” he adds. “Just realized we never actually swapped them. Text me when you’re done with your audition so I know you’re alive and still married to me.”
