CHAPTER 4 #3
The Sophia thought is the calibrator. Be careful, Elena.
The thought arrives in my own voice and I let it stay.
I open my eyes. I look at the lamp light on the walnut.
I look at the chain of the medallion at the back of his thumb-knuckle.
I think the chief upstairs is the opposite shape of the man who lost Sophia, and I think that is no guarantee he is the man who will keep me, and I think that is no reason to say no.
The third thought is the one I trust. The third thought is the one I have spent six years building.
"I understand."
"Good. Sit. Drink."
He steps back. He steps back with the finality of a man stepping back from a table he has finished setting.
The palm lifts. The air at my sternum is colder for a half-second and then warms again.
He goes to the credenza without hurry. He pours.
The Earl Grey is darker than the lamp. The steam from the spout finds the lamp light and curls up into it.
One cup. The kettle clicks. He leaves his own cup empty on the tray.
I sit. The leather of the club chair sighs as it sighs.
He lowers the cup to the desk a half-inch from my right hand.
The gold band at the rim catches the lamp.
The cup is hot through the porcelain; I lift it with both hands because I lift hot porcelain with both hands and because my right hand is steadier than my left.
I drink. The tea is hot and slightly bitter from over-steep.
It is bergamot and citrus and the warmer side of black tea, and it is also — under it, almost without weight — the salt of the room, and I drink it.
I touch the medallion at my sternum once.
I touch the chain where his palm touched it.
The silver is warmer than my skin. The room narrates this for me.
He stands at the credenza with one hand on his hip and one hand on the edge of the kettle. He watches the steam off the spout. The steam holds his eyes.
"You did not eat dinner."
"I did not."
"You will eat when you get home."
"I will."
"Kostya will drive you. He is waiting at the side entrance on Sixty-eighth. His eyes will stay on the road. He will spare you any conversation. He knows."
"Sir."
"Rossi."
"Yes."
"Go home. Sleep. Come back tomorrow."
I finish the tea. The cup is empty. I set it down on the saucer; the spoon rings once against the porcelain.
I rise. The pencil is still in the knot at my nape and the medallion at my sternum is warmer than it was when I left the residents' bay.
I cross the carpet to the door. He moves with me. He reaches the door first.
He sets the cup of his own on the credenza on the way — the cup, still empty, is in his right hand; he sets it down without a sound — and he opens the door for me with his left.
His own cup stays empty on the tray as I leave.
I notice.
I will be noticing him for the rest of my life.
*
Kostya is at the side entrance as the chief said he would be.
He is compact, broken-nosed, charcoal suit, hands at the wheel, eyes on the street.
His eyes stay on the windshield as I climb in.
He pulls out at the corner. The drizzle is steady.
The wet pavement reflects the sodium lamps in long smears of yellow and red.
The cab holds silence between us — the chief has set the table.
He pulls up at Thirty-fifth and Third because that is where my walk-up is and because he has been told. He waits for the door to close behind me. He pulls away as I am climbing the front stoop.
I let myself in. The clock on the kitchen wall reads twenty-two-forty.
My phone is face-down on the counter as I left it at six.
I turn it over. The missed-call counter has gone up by one.
Sister Mary Catherine. The voicemail icon stays dark.
The pediatric pin on the lanyard at my belt — ceil-blue enamel, the teddy bear and red stethoscope the children at St. Margaret's used to touch when they were going under — sits in the lamp light on the entry table.
The call can wait until morning. The words for it have yet to arrive.
In my bedroom I hang the lab coat on the back of the door.
I take off the badge and lay it on the dresser.
I take off the scrub top and the scrub pants and I stand in a heather T-shirt at the window.
My palm finds the place between my breasts where his palm was.
The chain is cool. My palm holds the heat the chain held an hour ago. The medallion is warmer than my skin.
The moon is just past full, half-veiled by cloud, and the wet street below catches it in slow runs along the curb.
I track the cars passing on Third Avenue.
One — a yellow cab, the off-duty lamp on.
Two — a black SUV with the windows fogged.
Three — a delivery van with the side door open and the rain falling into the inside of it.
Four — a sedan that is not Kostya's; he is gone.
Five — a city bus with three people on it.
Six — a livery car with the lamp lit. Seven — a taxi, the off-duty lamp on, the driver alone.
Seven.
I close the curtain. I climb into bed. The medallion is still warm. The room narrates it for me.
He kept my scrub top on. He took something off me anyway, with one hand on my sternum, and the name for it is still on its way.
I sleep.