“I imagine it is.”
Victorine huffed softly. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Cold. Distant.”
“Sitting with you is not pleasant for me. Would you prefer that I pretend that it is?”
“I would prefer that you make an effort to be agreeable. For the sake of our child.”
The effort that Roen made just then was not to recoil. “Why are you here?”
“Has living here dulled your mind? You have always been accounted to be a sharp wit. What’s happened?”
Roen leaned toward her and repeated his question, this time in a whisper. “Why are you here?”
She frowned at him. Thin horizontal creases marred her normally smooth brow. “How can you not know I’m here because of our baby?”
“Writing would have been an acceptable method of communication. Less expensive than a telegram. Much less costly than your trip here.”
She waved this last aside. “Father insisted that I take one of his private cars. It’s cost him nothing at all.”
Of course she would think that. “Writing?” he asked. “A telegram?”
“Haven’t you always told me you trust facts? Evidence? What proof could I offer in a letter? Am I wrong that you wouldn’t have believed me?”
“You’re not wrong,” he said after a long moment. “I don’t believe you now.”
Victorine reared back in her chair as though struck. She opened her mouth to speak but clamped her jaw shut again when Ellie appeared with their food and a pot of tea.
Roen sat back so Fedora, who’d followed on Ellie’s heels, could pour his coffee. He noticed her hand trembled slightly and doubted it was the weight of the pot that was responsible.She remained at his side until Ellie put down the plates and the teapot and wished them well, then she led the way back to the kitchen.
“Do you think she touched this?” Victorine stared at her plate. “The China girl, I mean. Do you think this is safe?”
“I can introduce you to the cook, if you like. Her name is Mrs. Vandergrift. She’s a harridan of a similar mind as yours.”
“Oh. You could have simply said the food was safe.”
Roen applied himself to his meal, not at all surprised that he had no real taste for the scrambled eggs or the grits. The crispy bacon was like gravel in his mouth.
“You look well, Roen,” said Victorine. “I confess I was hoping I’d find proof in your appearance that you missed me.”
“Dark circles under my eyes?” he asked. “Sunken cheeks? My heart on my sleeve?”
“All of that, I suppose. You must think me the worst sort of person to wish that on you.”
“I think you are the worst sort of person no matter what your wishes are.”
“Roen! Really, you are impossible. Your appearance may not have changed, but you have hardened your heart. If you were truly wearing it on your sleeve, it would be a lump of coal the size of your fist.”
Roen shrugged, unperturbed. Everything she said was true so there was no point to argue.
“This,” she said. “Thisis why I broke it off with you. Your little cruelties. The manner in which you close yourself off. It’s unconscionable the way you treat me.”
Roen was in the process of lifting a forkful of eggs to his mouth. He stopped, lowered the fork to his plate, and regarded Victorine as though she were a point on one of his maps, something to be studied but, in the end, of no particular interest or importance.
“To clarify,” he said, “I ended our relationship, such as it was, when I learned that your interests had wandered. You didn’t deny your involvement with other men, and out of respect for where we are, I am using the word ‘involvement’ most euphemistically. If it seems to you that I am closed, lookto yourself for the reason, and if you believe I have treated you unconscionably, you have but to recall that you tried to kill me.”
