“Where?”
“Warehouse. Tchoupitoulas. Four years ago.”
“Not where on the map. Where on you.” She taps the scar. “How deep did it go?”
“Deep enough.”
“Lucky.”
“Depends on your definition.”
She traces the edge of the tattoo where it meets unmarked skin. My pulse drums in my throat.
“Until you.”
She looks up. “What?”
“No one’s touched them.” The words scrape out like they’re being dragged over concrete. “Until you.”
Her hand stills on my arm. She’s not breathing. I’m not breathing. The office is silent except for the hum of her laptop and the distant clatter of Nonna Rosa in the kitchen.
She doesn’t deflect. Doesn’t make a joke. Stands there with her fingers on my scars and I can’t read her expression. I don’t want to.
She steps back. Returns to her chair.
“Your filing system is still terrible, by the way.” She starts typing.
I stare at my arm where her fingers were. The skin hums. I pull down my sleeve.
She finds the book. Not looking for it. She’s reaching past my desk for a reference file on the shelf and knocks a stack sideways. Papers scatter. Underneath them, wedged against the wall where I shoved it months ago, the field guide. Birds of Louisiana. Worn spine. Pages soft from handling. Dog-eared at warblers and raptors and the ibis section she’d make fun of me for caring about.
“What’s this?” She picks it up before I can reach for it.
“Put it back.”
“Is this a bird book?” She’s flipping through. Her eyes find the margins. “Wait. Are these drawings?”
I stand. Cross the space between us. Hold out my hand. She’s not giving it back.
Damn it.
She’s staring at the pencil sketches. A brown pelican. A roseate spoonbill. An osprey in flight, wing angles precise because I watched it for twenty minutes from the garden before I drew it.
“You draw.”
“Put it back, Isabella.”
“These are good.” She turns a page. A great blue heron. I spent an hour on the legs. “These are really good. The detail on the feathers.”
“My mother had a guide like this. I used to trace her illustrations when I was a boy.” I take the book from her. Close it. “A habit.”
“This isn’t a habit. Biting your nails is a habit.” She tilts her head. “This is art.”
“It’s copying.”
“It’s observation. Precision. Patience.” She’s studying me the way she studies data she wasn’t supposed to access. “The same hands that?—”
She stops herself. But I heard the shape of it. The same hands that hurt people. Draw birds.
