“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
“You’ve said that. Three times now, actually.” Harper’s voice was steady, but her eyes were sharp, missing nothing. “And you’ve eaten maybe four bites of my life-changing chicken, which is honestly a personal insult, but more importantly, you’re sitting there like you’re a thousand miles away.”
“I’m fine…”
“You’re not. You haven’t been fine since you walked in the door. I can see it written all over you, sweetheart.”
Miller’s hands had started to shake, so she flattened them on the table. “It’s just work. The case is intense, and I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Because of the case?” Nadia asked.
“Yes.”
“The work itself or…”
Miller went very still. The silence stretched between them. Harper was watching her with an expression Miller didn’t recognize and couldn’t read. Nadia waited, patient as always, the question hanging in the air.
“It’s complicated,” Miller finally said.
“So you’ve mentioned.” Nadia reached over and covered Miller’s hand with her own. “We have time. Harper’s food will keep.”
“It really won’t,” Harper muttered, but she nudged her plate aside anyway.
Miller stared at their joined hands. Her mother’s skin was soft and lined with age, the same hands that had held her through every nightmare and heartbreak and triumph of her life. She’d never hidden anything from these women. She’d never needed to.
She had no idea how to start telling them this, though. She didn’t even know how to tell it to herself.
“Let’s clean up,” Nadia said, as if sensing Miller wasn’t ready. “We can talk in the kitchen.”
The kitchen had always been where the real conversations happened. Something about the rhythm of cleaning and the excuse of performing a task made it easier to speak openly. Miller found herself at the sink, hands submerged in the soapy water, and Nadia drying the cleaned dishes beside her. Harper had retreated to the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. Miller could feel the warmth of her gaze on her back as she washed a plate, then another. The hot water stung her hands, and she welcomed it. It was something else to feel that wasn’t the churning in her chest.
“There’s someone,” she said, and her voice came out strange, too high-pitched and thin.
Nadia kept drying, not missing a beat. “Someone at work?”
“Connected to work. Not… It’s complicated.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it is.” Miller scrubbed at a spot that was already clean. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Try.”
The plate was going to crack if she kept scrubbing it. Miller set it in the rack and reached for another, but her hands were shaking too hard. She braced them on the edge of the sink instead, staring down at the soap suds in the water.
“I’ve been having dreams,” she said.
“What kind of dreams?”
Miller’s face went hot. “The kind you don’t talk about with your mothers.”
A pause, then from across the room, Harper simply said, “Ah.”
“About this person connected to work,” Nadia said.
“Yes.”
“And these dreams are…new?”
