I've listened to you tell me the truth when it would have been easier to let me keep believing something simpler. She looked at him steadily. "You're not a ghost. You're a person. A real complicated imperfect showing up for people person.
And that's considerably more interesting than any memory I was carrying. Marcus looked at her for a long moment. "I want to do this right," he said., "Whatever this is, I want to do it the right way. No rushing, no pretending. It's simpler than it is. " "Agreed," Elena said., "I'm going to mess some things up. " He said, "Probably," she said.
And I'm going to have moments where I don't know how to trust this yet where something will happen and I'll go cold and I won't be able to explain it in the moment. "And I'll stay," Marcus said. While you figure it out, I'm not going anywhere this time. Elena looked at him with an expression he couldn't fully name. Something between belief and the edge of belief.
That place where you want something to be true, and you are carefully, responsibly checking whether it actually is. "That's a big thing to promise," she said. "I know," he said. I mean it. They sat in that for a moment.
Then from across the parking lot, Zoe's voice carried over everything. "Daddy, I'm observing that I'm hungry. " Elena laughed. The full one, the shoulders and everything. Marcus stood up and called back. 2 minutes, Zoe.
"I'm very hungry, Daddy. This is an observation and also an emergency. " Marcus looked at Elena. I have to go feed your kid, Elena said. She was still smiling. He picked up his plate, started walking, got three steps, and turned back.
Thursday, he said. What about Thursday? "Let me cook. " He said, "You and Kha, our place. " Zoe will be there. It'll be loud. It'll probably involve at least one argument about prehistoric wildlife.
But I want to cook for you. Elena looked at him from the picnic table. "You can cook? " she said. "I can cook," he said. How do I know you're not going to make me eat something terrible?
You don't, he said. "That's the risk. " She tilted her head, studied him the same way she'd studied him in Plet's in the parking lot through 15 years of a story that had turned out to be more complicated than either of them had understood. Thursday, she said 6:00. 6:00, he said. He walked back to his truck.
Zoe was sitting in the passenger seat. She had transferred herself there with the authority of someone. Oh, who felt her hunger constituted a promotion, and she looked at her father as he got in with eyes that were doing rapid calculations. "Did it go good? " she asked. "Did it go well? " Marcus corrected.
"Did it go well? " Marcus started the truck. "Yeah, baby," he said. "It went well. " He pulled out of the parking lot. In his rearview mirror, he could see Elena gathering Kesha's jacket. Leaning over to wake the sleeping girl with a gentleness that she probably didn't know anyone was watching.
He was watching. He made himself look back at the road, but something he had not expected was happening in his chest. Something that had no name in the vocabulary of careful, managed, functional life he had built for himself over 15 years of keeping everything together. Something that did not respond to systems or plans or the reasonable application of self-discipline. Something that felt in the most accurate and terrifying way he could describe it.
Like the road coming home, he drove toward it anyway. Because for the first time in 15 years, Marcus Reed was not running from something. He was driving toward it on purpose with both hands on the wheel and his daughter singing something made up about sharks and dinosaur in the seat beside him and the address of his own kitchen already waiting at the end of Thursday evening like a door he had finally decided to open. He had no idea what was on the other side. He was choosing to find out anyway.
And that for Marcus Reed was the bravest thing he had done in 15 years. Thursday came and Marcus burned the rice. Not badly, not inedibly, but he lifted the lid at 5:47 and there was a smell that was not quite right and a slight color at the bottom of the pot that was the color of a mistake. And he stood there in his kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder and said one word quietly that he was glad Zoe was not in the room to hear. He had been cooking since 4:00.
He had gone to the grocery store twice. Once at 2:30 for the main ingredients and once at 4:15 because he forgot limes and then stood in the produce section for 6 minutes. Depns limes were necessary or whether he was over complicating this and concluded that he was absolutely over complicating this and bought the limes anyway. Zoe had been watching him from the kitchen doorway with the expression of a nature documentarian observing an animal in an unfamiliar habitat. "You're nervous again," she said.
"I'm cooking," Marcus said. "You're nervous and cooking," Zoe said. "You stirred that same pot four times in 2 minutes. " ""I counted. Go set the table, please. " "I already set the table. "" Marcus looked into the dining area. She had in fact set the table with the good placemats, the ones his mother had sent when he moved into the apartment, and the glasses from the cabinet he usually reserved for when Ranata came over and wanted to feel like an adult.
Zoe had also placed a small bunch of wild flowers in the middle of the table in a mason jar. Marcus stared at the flowers. ""Where did those come from? "" "The yard," Zoe said. ""We don't have a yard. "" the yard behind the building. Zoe clarified the patch by the parking lot. Zoe, you can't just pick. They were growing through the fence.
"Daddy, they wanted to come inside. " Marcus looked at his daughter. She looked back at him with complete serenity. He turned back to the stove and made a decision about the rice. They arrived at 602. Marcus heard the knock and felt something in his chest do the thing it had no business doing in a grown man standing in his own kitchen.
He took a breath, put the dish towel on the counter, and walked to the door. Elena was holding a bottle of sparkling cider in one hand and Kesha's hand in the other. Kesha was wearing a shirt with a shark on it, which was either a coincidence or a declaration. "You actually cooked? " Elena said, looking past him into the apartment. "I told you I could cook," Marcus said.
I know what you told me. I'm talking about what I can smell, which is considerably more convincing. She looked at him. "It smells good, Marcus. " "There's a rice situation I'm managing," he said honestly. "Tell me about the rice situation. " "It's under control. " "That means it's not under control. " "It is now," he said.
"Come in. " Kesha walked in and immediately located Zoe, who appeared from the hallway at the same moment with the precision of someone who had been listening for the knock since 5:50. The two girls looked at each other with the solemn recognition of people resuming an important ongoing project. "I have more shark facts," Kesha said. "I have more dinosaur facts," Zoe said. They disappeared into Zoe's room.