I dismiss the thought swiftly. That’s not what she came here for.
“It felt rude,” I remark. “To make something for myself and not for my guest.”
“I’m not your guest,” she replies. “I mean—it’s not that I’m not grateful for you doing all of this for me, that’s not what I mean, I just—I don’t expect you to put yourself out for me, that’s what I’m saying…”
“I’m not,” I reply. “Here. Sit. Have something to eat. It’s cold out there, you need to warm yourself up.”
She doesn’t protest any further, padding over to the couch in her bare feet and picking up the tray to put on her lap. She gulpsdown some of the water and lifts the spoon to take a mouthful of the soup. As soon as it touches her tongue, she seems to gain her appetite back, and she sets about putting the entire bowl away.
I watch her as she eats, picking at my own food distractedly. Now that she’s in a T-shirt, I can see a couple of bruises on her arm, including the newest one that she leaned on when she was in the car. It’s not the only mark on her skin, though. There are a few that look older, several that wrap around the base of her wrist, like someone gripped her there tightly with no intention of letting her go.
She notices me looking, and shifts sightly so they’re out of sight. She’s not ready to acknowledge them yet. I get it. Pushing her is only going to make her vanish further into herself, and the last thing she needs is to feel like I’m prying further than she’s comfortable with.
“The soup is delicious,” she tells me after a long pause, finally lifting her gaze to meet mine.
“Glad to hear it. Old family recipe.”
“You made it yourself?” She sounds slightly surprised.
I chuckle and nod. “Hard to get a private chef all the way out here,” I remark, gesturing around. “You’ve got to know how to take care of yourself.”
She smiles—not the kind of smile she gave me before, but something real. It lights up her entire face, like a weight has lifted from her shoulders, and she scrapes the last of the soup up with her spoon before she devours it.
“Well, tell your mother that her recipe is amazing,” she replies. I decide not to mention that my mother has been dead for a longtime now. She’s young, so she likely hasn’t had to contend with the loss of her parents the same way I have, and I don’t want to burden her with that weight when she’s shouldering enough as it is.
“I will.”
She carefully plants the tray on the small driftwood table in front of the fireplace, and casts her gaze around the room as though she’s seeing it for the first time.
“This place is beautiful,” she remarks. “You live here alone?”
I nod.
“It must be so nice, having a place outside of the city.” She sighs. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I see why people love it so much, but…all those people, all the time. I would love to have somewhere I could go if I needed a break from it all.”
“Do you?”
“Do I…?”
“Have somewhere you can go.”
She pauses, her brows tugging together for a moment. I wonder if it’s the first time she has considered that question. If she left in a hurry from wherever she was, she might not have thought about what she was going to do when she got to where she was going.
“I guess so,” she replies softly. “Nowhere like this, though.”
“Too reliant on a personal chef, huh?”
I try to lighten the mood with a joke, and she laughs, even through I’m not convinced it’s actually funny.
“Your accent,” she remarks. “You’re… Are you American?”
I shake my head. “Irish. Though I thought I’d gotten rid of my accent by now, given that I’ve lived here for a few decades.”
“I noticed it right away,” she remarks. “Not that that’s a bad thing, I mean. It’s so cool, the way you speak—God, I must sound like such a typical American, people must say things like that to you all the time…”
She presses her lips together, as though trying to keep herself from burbling any further. Her gaze flicks to the floor once more, as though she’s cursing herself for letting herself speak too much.
“Not as much as you’d think,” I reply. “People don’t notice it, most of the time.”
