We finish breakfast without hurrying. Reid pushes back first, carries his plate to the sink, and says he needs to get to the rescue center. They move through the clearing-up with the efficiency of men who have shared a kitchen for years. The choreography so practised neither of them seems to notice they're doing it. Owen excuses himself to make a call in the office. And then it's just me and Jace and the remaining wreckage of the table.
"Dish duty," Jace says. He's already stacking.
"I figured you'd find a reason to disappear."
"What gave you that impression."
"Everything about you."
He looks at me over the stack. "That's offensive."
"It's accurate."
He carries the plates to the sink. I bring the mugs. We fall into the rhythm of it without discussing it. He fills the basin. I find a dish towel. For a few minutes there's nothing but water and plates and Jace's commentary on how many dishes four people can generate at a single breakfast.
He has rolled his sleeves to the elbow.
The water is soapy and he works through the stack efficiently and the muscle in his forearm shifts when he scrubs, a slow flexion under tanned skin, and I catch myself mesmerized by the movement.
I look away.
I look back.
He hands me a plate. Our fingers touch.
He hands me another. I dry it. Then my phone lights up on the counter again.
Mum.
Jace glances at it. At me.
"Mothers," he says, with the gravity of a verdict, "are persistent."
"I've noticed."
I look at him. He looks back, patient, not pushing. I sigh and dry my hands on the dish towel.
"I'll be right back."
I go to the porch, not bothering with a jacket or boots.
The cold hits immediately, the wood rough and frozen under my soles. I don't go back for them. Shorter conversation this way.
"Hi, Mum."
"Maya." The relief is immediate and genuine. "I was getting worried. It's been a while since you checked in."
"I know. I've been busy." I look at the pines. The snow on the branches is thick from the storm and the sky above is hard winter blue. "The cabin needed some work."
"I'm glad you're all right." A pause. She chooses her next words the way she always does now, carefully, as though the right packaging changes what's inside. "I still don't understand why you had to go so far. Leaving everything. Your whole life was here."
"I didn't have a choice." I keep my voice flat. "You know that."
"Things were difficult." She minimizes it the way she always has. A small word to contain something that consumed my entire life. "But hiding in the mountains isn't going to fix anything. When the dust settles you should come home. Start over properly. Your father misses you."
Home.
The cold has worked past my ankles into my shins. I think about the word and what it has meant and what it means now, standing on this porch with the mountains behind the trees and the smell of breakfast still in the air.
