Letitia pressed her lips together and looked at the ceiling.
“Right,” she said after a moment. “Well, that”—she gestured between William and Cecily with her fork—“is what I mean. That is exactly what I mean. I want someone who says things like that about me after years. How do you account for that?”
“William is fortunate.” James shrugged.
“Or he is right, and you are wrong,” Letitia countered.
“The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“James.” She set down her fork, which meant she was serious. “You cannot sit at a table with William and Cecily and continue to argue that love is insufficient. The evidence is right in front of you.”
“I am not arguing that love is insufficient,” James said. “I am arguing that love alone?—”
“Is not enough,” Isadora finished.
Everyone looked at her.
She had not planned to speak, but the conversation had arrived somewhere she found she had something to say about.
“I agree with you on that part,” she continued. “Love alone is not enough. It requires… tending. Attention. The daily choice of the other person even when they have done something to irritate you thoroughly.”
“Has someone irritated you thoroughly?” James asked.
“The point,” she said with great composure, “is that I think you and William are describing the same thing. William is simply describing it from inside, which sounds like Cecily. You describeit in the abstract because the abstract is manageable. You can have opinions about the abstract. You can be intelligent about it, and measured, and appropriately skeptical.” She held his gaze. “Particular is more difficult because it requires you to be in it rather than above it.”
“I am not above it,” James protested. “I am simply?—”
“Observing it from a slight distance,” she said. “Yes, I know.”
The table had gone rather quiet. Letitia’s eyes darted between James and Isadora with sharp focus as she chewed on her food.
“The particular,” James said carefully, “is messier than the abstract.”
“Yes,” Isadora agreed. “It is.”
“People in particular love to make particular mistakes. They misread each other. They expect things that were never promised and are disappointed when they fail to materialize. They…” He paused. “The particular is where it goes wrong.”
“The particular is also where it goes right,” she argued. “You seem to have noticed only the one direction.”
“I have seen more of the one direction.”
“Then you have been looking in the wrong places.” She said it without heat, even though she could feel the color rise in her face. “Or you have been looking for things to confirm what you already believe, which is not the same as looking.”
“I look,” he insisted. “I observe things accurately.”
“You observe thingssafely,” she corrected. “From a position that allows you to say it is exactly as you expected rather than being surprised.” She paused. “Letitia wants someone who surprises her. I think that requires being surprising. Which requires?—”
“Being wrong,” James cut in.
“Being open,” she countered. “Which feels like the same thing if you are very committed to being right.”
James looked at her over the rim of his cup. “You think I am closed off.”
“I think you are careful,” Isadora said. “I think you have been careful for so long that it has become invisible to you. You call it observation. You call it realism.” She looked at him steadily. “I think it is armor, James. Very well-made armor. But armor nonetheless.”
His expression shifted in a way that she had not anticipated. Still, he did not argue.
“And you are not careful at all?” he asked, more quietly than before.
