“Were you going to wait here all night?” Ellie still can’t quite believe Daniel stayed.
“No, of course not.” He looks incredulously at her. “I figured if a bedroom light turned on, then everything was all right, or at least you had somewhere to sleep for the night.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He waves her off and starts to back up the car.
“Daniel.” Ellie feels crazy for even bringing this up. “Do you know when Mom gave Chris a diamond ring?”
“Aunt Vera bought Chris a diamond ring?” Daniel stops the car and looks at Ellie, baffled. “While she was in a coma?”
“That’s what she made it sound like. Maybe she meant before, but I don’t know where Mom would have gotten the money to pay for it.”
“Maybe she meant that she’d bought it for Aunt Vera and has now inherited it?”
Ellie sighs in relief. Maybe great minds think alike but they’re probably just both making the same assumptions about Chris. That said, Daniel has never been accused of thinking good things about Chris.
“That thought occurred to me.” Ellie starts to fiddle with theair-conditioning, then decides there’s no point. “But she could have said that.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me, though?” Daniel shrugs. “I mean, it’s a little eccentric, but it’s not like she can’t afford a diamond ring.”
Ellie sinks into the seat. Her body spreads and her arms fall by her side. The seat presses gently against her back. Her shoulders slump, and only now does she understand how tense she was in the house.
This late at night, the highways of metro DC work the way they’re intended. Cars roll smoothly around the ring roads. They divert without pause up and down the intersecting highways. It’s not always like this. Any weekday morning or afternoon, people are trapped in their metal cages, creeping to work or crawling home five feet at a time.
As she senses the cars humming smoothly down the highway, she turns a thought over and over in her head: For years, she tried to figure out the right things to do and to say in the right order to make everything work out because Mom wanted her to. Mom’s gone. She doesn’t have to talk to Chris ever again, except Mom died insisting her daughters be sisters to each other. Ellie can’t defy Mom and she’s sure Chris told Mom what she wanted to hear. It’s not fair that instead of some normal contentious relationship between two sisters who can’t stand each other, Ellie has this. All she’s asked for is something normal, or at least more normal. Maybe without the weight of the filial piety to a fault they’ve both imposed on themselves, it’s possible.
CHAPTER 13
Morning light seeps into Daniel’s apartment, painting it in shades of black and gray. Ellie’s up because she gets up with the sun whether she wants to or not. Daniel, of course, is already up and out. If she knows him, he’s at the gym picking up ridiculously heavy things and then gently setting them back down again.
The kitchen bursts into glorious color or at least tasteful values of metallic when Ellie turns on the light. It, like the rest of Daniel’s apartment, is immaculate. If it were anyone else’s kitchen, she’d think the owner never used it. But it’s Daniel’s and, if not in this kitchen, she’s seen his deft knife work and his flair with flames in a couple of others. Pans hang from the ceiling in order of size. A magnetic strip on the wall over the rice cooker on the counter keeps all the knives—again, sorted by size—in convenient reach for someone with long arms. She’s not about to test them, but she’s sure they’re all perfectly sharp. The range gleams. The microwave above it isn’t splattered with sauces. A tiny table, big enough for two, sits against a wall with two chairs tucked in against the table edge.
The refrigerator looks too perfect to open. It’s probably not actually polished to a mirror-perfect sheen—Daniel is tidy, not obsessive—but she still doesn’t want to smudge it. Ellie gets over herself. Daniel won’t care and it’ll take her mere seconds to buff away.
Chinese broccoli and daikon rest in the crisper. Jars of sauces, most of them some variation of spicy, line the inside of the door.Labeled containers sit in neat columns on the shelves. She picks out the rice porridge, fried dace with black beans, and soy-pickled cucumbers.
The pans clatter and a wind gust buffets her back. She turns around. Belt materializes and crashes to the floor. She didn’t realize he learned how to travel like this, not that she’s entirely surprised. Given the slightest interest, Daniel will pull complete strangers into a tutorial.
Belt’s face is now clean-shaven and any hint of scruffiness has been flensed from him. The effect is less unexpectedly handsome lobsterman of Gloucester and more expectedly handsome fairy-tale prince who has traded places with his trusted valet. His long limbs flail for an instant before he gathers himself.
“Hi, Ellie.” Belt picks himself off the floor. “I’m still new at this.”
Belt’s voice invariably rings. It’s high and brilliant. The entire kitchen sings back in response.
“Did Daniel teach you?” Ellie looks around, then puts the containers of leftovers on the counter.
“Do you really need to ask?” Belt rolls his eyes.
“Fair.” She opens a cabinet, looking for a bowl. “Tell me you’re learning about maintenance of your own free will.”
It’s like singing. Nothing stops anyone from learning how to maintain the skunkworks except disinterest. Anyone can get better if they learn and practice. Some people, especially if they have been training since they were children, can become great. Ellie imagines Belt can get to the point of doing some easy routine maintenance—whether it’s as an architect, a verifier, or a builder—if he wants to spend the years working at it.
“Sure, but I doubt I’ll ever do any actual maintenance. It’s on my radar about as much as opera is on other people’s. I’m happy for some group of people I know nothing about to keep the universe working. I don’t need the drama. Well, I guess I know you andDaniel.” He takes a bowl from a cabinet over the range and hands it to Ellie. “After a couple of years of work, I now have two party tricks. I can crash-land here and I can crash-land home. I suppose it’s like how Daniel probably would have made a fine professional dramatic basso profondo if he’d spent his first decades tirelessly training to be an opera singer. As if Chinese school and maintainer school hadn’t been enough. Instead, he’s just this guy with an unusually deep voice. Not that I haven’t tried to work on his diction.”
“Wait, you have performances next week.” Ellie sets the bowl on the counter. “La Cenerentola, right?”
“Yeah, hence the shave and haircut. This production wants its Prince Charming as squared away as a marine. I left my score here, and I have a rehearsal in DC in an hour. Otherwise, I’d have taken the Metro, much easier, if more time-consuming.”
