“I had four sisters,” Iro shared.
“Had?” Arwen asked.
“They’re no longer around, either.”
“What? Iro… What happened?”
“Accidents for two of them, then cancer, and one died during childbirth.”
Iro sounded very much unaffected, as if she’d given this exact sentence over a hundred times, and maybe she had, so Arwen didn’t want to push about their deaths.
“I’m so sorry. Were you older? Younger?”
“I was the youngest. My oldest sister, Elizabeth, died in childbirth. Her baby, a girl, didn’t survive. She was premature. The next eldest was Mary. She had cancer. Then, there was Agnes, who died in a… car accident.” Iro cleared her throat. “And Joan was with her.”
“Oh, my God,” Arwen said, placing her hand, palm up, on the table.
Iro stared down at it in confusion, almost as if she didn’t know what to do, which made Arwen wonder, but then, Iro slipped her hand into hers.
“And your father?”
“Long gone,” Iro told her, keeping it vague, and Arwen didn’t want to press again. “What aboutyourfamily? I hope more pleasant news.”
“My mom and dad are both lawyers. I guess it runs in the family. I’m an only child. My mom is a public defender, and my dad has his own not-all-that-successful injury firm, so we were never well-off or anything. I grew up in a small two-bedroom house in Virginia. They’re still there.”
“Where did your passion for the environment come from?” Iro asked.
“Years ago, my parents watched a documentary about the meat industry and turned me onto it. We all became vegetarians after that, and a few years later, I went vegan. They’re still vegetarians, but my mom knows just about every way to make something vegan for me when I come home for a visit. Anyway, that documentary got me hooked on learning more about the environmental impact of the modern world, and I started making changes as I could. It’s actually cheaper for me to make my own soaps and stuff, so that’s an added benefit because you don’t make a lot of money doing what I do.”
“The millionaires are the ones polluting the environment, I suspect,” Iro noted, pointing to herself.
Arwen smiled and said, “We’re all polluting it, no matter what we do, really. But I don’t get mad at people who are making a real effort to learn and try to do better. I get mad at climate change deniers because it makes no sense to me. How can you not see it?”
“I think there are a lot of things that are obvious, but people choose not to look,” Iro replied.
“Here’s your wine, and I’ve got waters as well. Would you like to sample?” their waiter asked.
Iro checked with Arwen, who shook her head and said, “I wouldn’t know good from bad, so it’s up to you.”
“You can just pour,” Iro replied, letting go of Arwen’s hand in order to give him space on the small table.
“Your appetizers should be right behind me.”
“That was fast,” Iro said.
“No meat to cook.” Arwen winked at her. “You usually get your food faster.”
“Another added benefit,” Iro said.
The appetizers arrived right after the waiter had finished pouring their wine, so he set all the plates between the two of them and left them alone again.
“What should we try first?” Iro asked.
“Try the hummus. I’ll try the rice. Then, we’ll switch.”
“Or…” Iro faded out before she picked up a piece of the country bread served with the hummus, dipped it, and held it out for Arwen to bite into.
Arwen leaned over and tried her best to take a delicate bite so as not to make a mess. When she started chewing, she couldn’t believe how good it was.
