I pull out the stool opposite her and sit down as I consider her across the counter. The borrowed clothes, the hair pulled back, the shadows under her eyes that tell me she got perhaps three hours of sleep if I'm generous, and I decide, as I decided last night, that this woman gets the truth.
"My uncle," I say. "A few months ago, he informed his nephews that each of us was required to produce an heir. Within twelve months."
She blinks. "Required."
"Yes,” I say on a sigh. “He's the head of this family. What he requires tends to happen."
"And your cousins…" she trails off.
"All complied." I keep my voice level. "One by one."
She's quiet for a moment, processing this. "And you're the last one."
"Yes."
"How much time do you have left?"
I look at her. "Not much."
She nods slowly, turning this over. I can see her arriving at the next question before she asks it, and I can see her decide to ask it anyway, which is something I'm starting to recognize as simply what she does.
"Is that what they were suggesting?" she says. "About me."
"Yes."
"And you said no."
“I said no.”
She's quiet again. Outside the window, the grounds are grey and frost-edged, the kind of January morning that looks like a landscape held in suspension. She looks out at it for a moment and then back at me.
"Why?" she says.
It's a simple question. But it's not a simple question at all.
"Because you didn't come here for that," I say. "You came here because your feet brought you somewhere while your brain was somewhere else entirely. That's not a choice. I'm not going to hold you to consequences you didn't agree to."
"But the deadline is real," she says. Not pushing. Just accurate.
"Yes."
"And your uncle—"
"My uncle will do what he does," I say. "That's my problem. Not yours."
She holds my gaze for a moment, and I watch something work itself out behind her eyes. Then she says, so quietly it almost doesn't carry: "I'm sorry. That you're in that position."
I look at her.
I'm not accustomed to people being sorry on my behalf. I'm accustomed to people being afraid of my position, or wanting something from it, or simply working around it. Sympathy is notsomething I have a ready mechanism for. It feels unexpected, that simple statement, like a stone dropped into very still water.
"I’ll handle it," I say.
She makes a sound. Not quite a laugh.
"That's your go-to for everything, isn't it?" she says.
"It usually is."
