18. Reva #2
Delia lowers her gaze to Homer, but I see the corner of her mouth move.
Nash steps fully into the kitchen. “Shiloh.”
Shiloh straightens enough to prove he can be serious when the room demands it. “Everything continues to be fine. Your man outside the ICU is good, but the one by the stairwell needs coffee or a personality transplant.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“I know.”
That short exchange carries the weight of everyone not saying Cal could still turn. Stable is good. Stable is not awake. Stable does not mean safe from Isabel’s reach forever.
Delia’s hand stills on Homer.
I wonder if she is thinking of Cal. The man who kept me alive. The man she might have hated before she knew he was real. The man Isabel wanted dead because he knew where I had been taken.
I want to ask. I do not.
Ever starts over with the eggs. “Poached, then.”
Delia glances up at him. “You can scramble them.”
“I can poach an egg.”
“Can you?”
His stare is level. “Yes.”
I lean toward her, lowering my voice. “I have never seen him poach an egg.”
“That’s because you’re not highbrow enough to ask for one,” Ever says.
“Burn.” Delia’s mouth twitches again. This time, she lets it remain a little longer.
Homer kneads her thigh.
Her whole body tightens, pain flashing across her face before she catches it. The laughter drains out of me at once.
“Don’t,” she says before I can speak.
She looks down at the cat, and her hand hovers over his back like she is deciding whether softness is safe enough to touch twice. Then her fingers sink into his fur, hesitant at first, then with a slow, careful pressure that makes him purr so loud it sounds mechanical.
I have wanted a hug from my sister since I was seven years old. Watching her pet my cat like she has not touched anything soft in years feels worse.
It also feels better.
I have no idea what to do with that.
Shiloh notices. Of course he does. He notices emotional weather the way Ever notices cameras.
He grabs plates from the cabinet and begins setting the table with exaggerated stealth, making a show of not watching Delia while also arranging everything so she will not have to reach far.
A napkin. Fork. Water glass. The good strawberries.
The muffins that won’t break anyone’s teeth.
He places one muffin near Delia. “Peace offering.”
She looks at it. “For what?”
“Existing loudly.”
“You do that.”
“I know. This is reparations.”
She studies him for a long second. “You’re the funny one.”
He presses a hand to his chest. “I prefer emotionally vital.”
Delia looks at me. “Is he always like this?”
I shrug. “He’s worse when he’s wounded.”
“I’m rarely wounded,” Shiloh says.
Deacon sits at the end of the table with the stiff care of a man pretending his side does not hurt. “You’re often wounded. Usually in pride.”
Shiloh points at him. “You are supposed to be resting.”
“So are you.”
“Eh. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“Oh, no. We aren’t saying that around here,” I cut in.
Delia watches the exchange without moving, but some of the rigidity has eased from her shoulders. I think it’ll take a while to go completely away…to heal or to be forgotten…but still, she’s here. Sitting at a table with us while bacon pops in the pan and Ever quietly watches his egg water.
Thank God.
Nash pours himself the new coffee after I give him a suspicious look and he survives the first sip. That seems to approve the pot. I pour another mug and set it near Delia, this time with less cream.
She eyes it. “Better?”
“I had adult supervision.”
She takes a sip. Nods once. I feel as if I have been awarded a medal.
Breakfast comes together in pieces. Bacon crisp enough for me, eggs scrambled for everyone except Delia because Ever is a stubborn man and poaches hers with grim competence, strawberries sliced because Shiloh found a knife and needed to feel useful, muffins unwrapped from the hospital bag and arranged on a plate like we are normal people with normal mornings.
Nobody says the word Isabel.
Nobody asks what happens next.
The question sits at the table with us anyway.
I eat because Nash looks at me until I do.
Delia eats slowly, cautious at first, then with the focus of someone who did not realize she was hungry until food was in front of her.
Homer remains in her lap until she gives him a tiny piece of bacon, at which point he becomes hers forever, and I realize there’s probably nothing I wouldn’t do to have my sister back.
Even let my cat like her more than he does me.
When the plates are half-cleared and the room has settled into something quieter, Delia reaches for her coffee again.
Her bandaged fingers curl around the mug.
“I…um…I guess I can tell you things,” she says.
Everyone stops pretending not to wait.
My fork pauses halfway to the plate. I set it down carefully.
Delia keeps her eyes on the coffee. “Not everything.”
“Okay.”
“And not with everyone staring at me like I’m a rescued dog.”
Shiloh lowers his gaze to his plate. Ever turns back toward the stove, though there is nothing left to cook. Nash leans against the counter, arms folded, face unreadable. Deacon looks down at his coffee.
Men who take orders when they matter.
I shift in my chair to face her more fully. “Okay.”
Delia’s throat moves. “If I tell you things, you don’t get to look at me like I’m dead.”
The sentence opens something under my ribs.
I think of all the ways I have looked at her since she walked into the cabin.
Like a ghost. Like proof. Like grief that learned to talk back.
Like the girl I lost and this woman I don’t know and desperately want to know.
Maybe those looks hurt worse than anger because she had no defense for being mourned while breathing.
I nod once.
“Agreed. As long as you don’t talk to me like I should be dead.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
There’s a flash of pain. A flash of offense. Then something that looks almost like respect, which is ridiculous because we are sitting in a kitchen with a cat shedding on her borrowed sweatpants and a poached egg cooling on her plate.
She looks down at Homer.
“Fine,” she says.
The word is small, but it holds. It’s not forgiveness, and it’s not peace.
But it’s the first thing we’ve built together since we were seven.
And it’s going to stand.