I trust whatever she’s doing, though, and so when we move into the house and Kris completely avoids talking business, I follow her lead. I sit at the small round table in the eat-in kitchen that only has room for four, a relief since I don’t expect Tanner and Allison—who retreat down a narrow hallway—are going to be much help, and I avoid getting out any of the materials Kristen and I brought. I take a mug from Romina and pretend to enjoy what tastes to me like hot apple juice; I fake the sweet tooth I don’t really have and eat a frosted cookie in the shape of a candy cane.
I feel the distance between me and Kristen like it’s a wall.
“Now, Gil, I know you said you’ve made up your mind,” she says eventually, and I sit forward in my chair, letting her take the lead, both because it’s the best option for this and because I need to get my brain back online.
She’s good; she’s always good—she makes it a conversation, not a pitch. She doesn’t assume the concerns they have; she asks about them, and each one she’s got an answer for—a contract revision that offers more time off, paid flights back here, more options for working remotely. She asks whether funding for stewardship of this property while they’re away would help—a regular groundskeeper, updated security systems, whatever. But just like I can feel the wall between me and her, I can feel the wall Gil and Romina are putting up between themselves and us.
I feel tense, slightly desperate, and it’s unlike me. Sure, I’m intense about work, but this—emotion. I feel all inside out, same as I’ve felt since the kiss. Losing this job feels like losing her, especially now that I know how she felt about that kiss.
Awkward,she’d said.
“Your grandchild,” I say quietly, in deference to the privacy Tanner and Allison seemed to want. “The two years you spend over there—it would be doing something good for your grandchild.”
I can feel Kristen’s eyes on me. This is unexpected. I don’t usually do family stuff.
“How do you figure?” Romina says. She’s got a look on her face like I’m a robber baron, sitting here on a pile of cash I’ve hoarded for myself.
“It’s not about the money, because of course you know about the money you stand to get here. Private schools, college, whatever you’d want—you know already you could do all that.”
Gil looks up, eyebrows raised. Maybe it’snotover.
“It’s about the tech. It could change the world, make it a safer place for your grandchildren, all of them. Fresh, drinkable water for huge numbers of people from water that could otherwise kill them? You know how much this helps the world, Gil. And you’re doing it in a way that doesn’t ruin the—”
“I know,” Gil says, and Romina purses her lips. He rubs a hand over his beard and under the table, Kristen moves so that her foot touches mine. I strain to get that brain-body synapse working right.That was good, she’s saying, and it makes my heart grow two sizes.
I let it sit, something I learned from Kris. For the first time I notice there’s holiday music coming from somewhere. I distract myself by wondering if Gil and Romina are in some kind of “torture Jasper” pact with Carol.
“It’s not just the grandkid,” Gil says after a long minute. He stares into his cup, and I see the doubt written all over his face. Beside him, Romina clasps her hands, and he takes a deep breath. “It’s that I don’t want to miss a second of seeing my son be a father. Can’t wait to see him be great at it.” He smiles, looks over at Romina, chuckles slightly. “Can’t wait to see him mess up at it, either.”
I blink across the table, struck dumb. Of course I’d missthispart of the equation, this kind of unconditional family affection. Of course I have no answer for it.
“I know you don’t have kids of your own,” he says. “But you can imagine how I feel.”
“No, sir,” I say sharply, honestly, and I know as soon as it’s out of my mouth, it’s an error. It’s the wrong tone, too personal. Beside me, Kristen’s gone stiff, but I don’t stop the end of my sentence. “I can’t.”
There’s a heavy silence. I’ve ruined the mood, the possibility. I’ve ruined the job, if the way Kristen is standing from her seat is any indication.
“I think it’d be a good idea for Jasper and me to get settled in our hotel.” She’s said this so smoothly, as though there’s some nearby hotel we’ve booked. We haven’t—she’s flying this evening and I’ve got a room in Boston for the next three nights, because why the hell not. But that’s how bad I’ve messed it up—getting out of here for a debrief is necessary. “Would you be up for an early dinner in town?”
Romina looks at her, seeming grateful. But then she chuckles. “I guess that means you haven’t heard,” she says. “I don’t think we’ll be getting out much this evening.”
And that’s when the first gust of wind roars outside.
Chapter Six
KRISTEN
A ground blizzard.
Afreakground blizzard.
Starting even earlier than Gil and Romina had heard about.
I’m sitting stiffly on their plaid-upholstered couch, staring at the muted television screen. The fact that there’s barely any reporting from the Boston stations on what’s happening outside says everything about how isolated we are out here. Gil says ground blizzards don’t come around much in this part of the country, but their small town is unusually flat, and there’s not many tree lines surrounding the main roads. If there’s good news, Romina says, it’s that it’ll probably be over by midnight, and so long as there’s no other weather in the area, the roads will probably be clear by tomorrow afternoon.
Outside, the wind steadily howls, the windows shaking with it, white swaths of snow whipping by. Inside, it’s almost as tense: on my lap, my phone lights up with texts from Kelly and my mom, who are now, given my quick update, afraid I might not make it to Michigan at all. In the kitchen, Tanner and Allison speak in hushed tones to each other as they make dinner. Gil and Romina disappeared about ten minutes ago, probably because of what’s happening behind me—Jasper, pacing the length of the couch, on his phone, his tone rigidly, falsely controlled.
The bad weather feels like compounding interest, piling on top of the tension Jasper’s carried with him all day—this morning at the airport, the quiet drive here, his reaction to this house, this family. His frank, almost desolate reply to Gil at the table. If there’s any advantage to what’s happened here, it’s that I’ll have more time to figure out what’s really going on with him. Whatever else is strained between us, we’re friends, and I don’t like seeing him this way.
