I stir the chili even though it doesn’t need it, because my hands need the motion. I taste it one last time so when Freya arrives, it’s there for whenever she wants it. The cumin, tomato, and hint of dark chocolate melt on my tongue. A goddamn taste sensation. Perfect.
Just then, headlights wash across the window.
My pulse spikes ever so slightly, and I’m not impressed with how hard it is to keep calm around her. Maybe it’s because there’s still so much to talk about. I know we have time, but I’ve never felt settled with uncertainty.
Like what am I going to do for work when the baby comes?
I told Gabriel this morning that I’m not feeling stakeouts as a dad. I don’t want to leave Freya alone with a baby, or even leave hernowin case she gets heartburn.
The door opens.
Freya walks in with her shoulders slumped and hair frizzed from the day, her curls springing out of the bun she had tame this morning.
“Hey.” She toes her shoes off.
Something in me sharpens. That tone isn’t “normal” tired. That’s “something happened” tired.
“Hey.” I turn the burner down. “How was work?”
Her laugh is flat and humorless. “Strange. Heavy.” She breathes in. “Sweet baby Jesus, it smells good in here.”
“Sit.” I lift her bag off her arm before she can protest and gesture to the sofa. She doesn’t argue; she just collapses into the cushions like her legs gave out. She rolls her ankle once under the coffee table, the kind of move someone makes when something’s been bothering them all day.
She’s got to be beat. She started work today after that long drive yesterday. Everything is new at the station. I wish I could take it all on, but Freya, like myself, is something of a workaholic.
She lets her head fall back, eyes closing, a quiet groan slipping out.
“Hope you like chili,” I say.
Her eyes open slowly. “Are you serious right now? I’d eata brick. I’m starving.” She smiles. “But seriously, you didn’t have to cook for me.”
I shrug. “I like cooking.”
She studies me, curiosity in her eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” I hesitate to say when the passion started but tell myself I’ll need to open up more than I’m used to if we’re raising a kid together.
I sit next to her, laying my arm on the back of the sofa and my knee propped up between us. “When Ava and I were in captivity…I was suddenly put in charge of cooking meals for a child. I figured she deserved for me to be good at it.”
It brings back haunting memories, some good, some bad. It’s hard to explain to anyone how the injustice of me and Ava being kept in captivity led to me also discovering the best parts of myself. Not just cooking.
She’s shocked as anyone would be. “Your captors gave you stuff to cook?”
I nod. “It was all part of the guise of normality that fucker had going.”
Freya’s eyebrows pinch together. “Grooming…”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
“And you stayed with her…to protect her? Because I’m guessing with your Navy SEALs training, you could have maybe escaped.”
“Maybe…” Absolutely. I could have gotten out, but not with a kid in tow. “But, yeah, she was innocent. So…”I stayed.
It’s hard to talk like this, but I need to keep trying. I don’t want to pass any trauma onto our kid.
Freya stares at me for a moment too long, and I know she’s considering how deep to dive.
“Ava was very lucky to have you.”
