Chapter 13
***
The four of us had dessert , something with pears and pastry that Henry produced without announcement, the way he produced everything, as if it had simply materialized from the correct application of intention.
The conversation was easier now, looser, the particular quality of a table that had been through something together even if only two of the four knew what.
Shay told a shorter story. Charlie laughed at it.
Henry made the thirty,percent expression.
Felix was quiet.
I watched him, from across the table, the way I had always watched him , peripherally, automatically, the way you track something important in your peripheral vision because looking at it directly costs too much.
He was sitting with something. I could see it , the way he was present but also somewhere else, running a version, working a calculation I didn't have access to.
He looked up.
Caught me watching.
I didn't look away this time.
For three full seconds, neither did he.
Then Charlie said something and the moment folded back into the table and I picked up my spoon and ate the pear thing and thought: something is different.
I couldn't name it. Couldn't locate it. Just , a quality in the air, a shift in barometric pressure, the sensation of a front moving through.
Something is different.
I ate the pear thing.
I did not let myself hope. I had learned what hope cost, and I was conserving.
But I noted it. Filed it. Held it somewhere careful.
Something is different.