Chapter XVI #2
“So formal,” Barbara teases, her blue-gray eyes dancing. She steps back to the doorway and ushers them both in. “Come on in, both of you!”
Mariam leads the way inside, and Sable follows close behind.
A tiny cream-colored cat, with black fur on her face and paws, meows in greeting from the couch, watching Sable.
Then, seemingly too curious to watch from a distance, she hops down and comes to investigate her directly, twining around her and rubbing her face on Sable’s pant leg.
Sable has seen Fae keep pet cats, though they grow them bigger in the Fae realm, and wilder.
This one seems as soft and friendly as Mariam and her mother.
She smiles at the little beast, then picks her up and scratches under her chin. Immediately the creature is purring.
“Oh, would you look at that!” says Barbara. “Dora is normally standoffish with new people. She must be a good judge of character.”
“Why, thank you, Ms. Barbara.” Sable pets the cat for a moment longer before releasing her to prowl around behind her.
Barbara waves them further into the house.
It’s cluttered, but not dirty, Sable observes.
Knicknacks and whatnots sit on every shelf, and wrinkled, warm-looking blankets are haphazardly strewn over most of the furniture.
As they enter a room which looks to be both kitchen and dining room, Sable sees another woman, willowy with dark hair, busying herself with what must be dinner.
She offers a small smile to the party. Barbara moves to her side, gently squeezing her.
“This is Dotty, Mariam’s older sister. Dotty, meet Mariam’s new girlfriend Sable. ”
“It’s a pleasure,” Dotty says warmly. “Gosh, you are tall, though.”
“Dotty!” Barbara scolds, but Sable holds up a hand, grinning.
“Don’t worry about that; you can be as honest as you want to.
And yeah, I guess I am fairly tall.” Among humans, at least, though she isn’t going to add that qualifier here.
She runs a hand over Mariam’s lower back, who offers her a soft smile.
Sable does not miss the raised eyebrows on Dotty and Barbara’s faces as they exchange a look.
“Go ahead and have a seat, dears,” says Barbara. “Dotty and I will finish up the food.”
“Oh, Mom, I can’t let you do that—” Mariam starts.
“Yes, you can. Sable shouldn’t be sat alone without you.
” Barbara shoos her, and with a defiant sigh, Mariam leads Sable to the birch dining table pushed up against the wall.
The chairs are part of a matching set, and they have cream-colored cushions that have a pleasant give to them as Sable takes a seat.
Mariam sits to her right, then laces her fingers with Sable’s under the table.
Sable gives her a soft look. Shortly, Barbara and Dotty bring over a large glass dish with some food Sable doesn’t recognize and pitchers of lemonade and ice water, before taking seats themselves, Barbara at her left, and Dotty next to Barbara. “I hope you like shepherd’s pie, Sable!”
“I’ve never had it, but I’ve been growing fond of the new foods I’ve been trying lately,” Sable offers vaguely with a smile. Barbara laughs, but she notices Dotty’s eyes narrow slightly.
“So, Sable,” Dotty begins, “what do you do for work?”
“I’m, uh, currently unemployed, after… leaving my, er, I guess you’d call them a mercenary group,” Sable stammers, handing her plate to Barbara to be served some shepherd’s pie, “but I have a lead on new work with a pub near Mariam’s place.”
“A mercenary group, you say?” Dotty is clearly suspicious, not that Sable could blame her. “What did you do, exactly?”
“It was an agency that contracted with the nation’s military,” Sable replies, keeping to the backstory she and Mariam practiced. “We were essentially soldiers for hire.” She takes Mariam’s plate and hands that to Barbara too, for her portion to be doled out.
Dotty nods, taking a bite of food. “Is that where you got all those scars? In combat?”
“Dotty!” Barbara scolds as she hands Sable Mariam’s plate. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m just asking questions, Ma. We hardly know anything about her.”
“I agree,” Sable chimes in, carefully setting the plate down in front of Mariam. “In your position, I’d want to know all I could about a new person in my daughter or sister’s life. And yes, that is how I got my scars, though the specifics… would not make for pleasant dinner conversation.”
“Sable, you are much too kind, entertaining her morbid curiosity,” Barbara says with a sigh.
Finally the conversation lulls for long enough for Sable to take a bite of the pie.
It is quite tasty. It looked unfamiliar, but it’s really a mishmash of familiar enough ingredients: she recognizes mashed potatoes, some mix of vegetables, a brown gravy, and juicy bits of steak… Yeah, she’s going to want seconds.
“Well, if we’re asking questions,” says Barbara, “I’d like to know, how did you two meet? Mariam never mentioned.”
“Outside a little coffee shop downtown,” Mariam replies fondly, stroking the back of Sable’s hand. “I stopped in for a drink on a rainy evening, and as I was leaving, I bumped into Sable as she was on her way in. We shared a coffee after.”
That earns a protracted “aww” and a smile from Dotty. “A little coffee date, that’s super cute.”
“It was… an interesting day,” is all Sable can think to say.
“It’s been an interesting month,” says Mariam.
“I’ll bet! Given you two are together now!
” Barbara smiles brightly, taking a sip of lemonade.
Sable lets a bit of the anxiety in her chest go at that.
They planned an entire version of the Caedren story with the supernatural elements omitted if they had to get into it.
Mariam said the best lie was as close as possible to the truth, but even she admitted the story was flimsy.
Thankfully, it looks like they’ll get through this without having to go into those details.
“Sable,” Barbara continues after another short lull in the conversation as people eat, “your accent is quite lovely, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard one quite like it. Where are you from, dear?”
“A small village in the mountains in Greece, near the border with North Macedonia. We’re a bit isolated, so we don’t quite sound like anyone else.”
“Ah, how lovely!” Barbara, Sable is learning, rarely asks follow-up questions. But not so for her oldest daughter.
“You left Greece to come to America?” Dotty asks, her eyes skeptical again. “That’s… an interesting choice.”
“My family and I had… a falling out,” Sable says, her voice thicker than she meant it to be.
“I’m not welcome back home anymore.” Sable feels a muscle in her jaw twitch at the pain in her chest. She loved her father dearly, even as he sunk lower and lower in his quest for revenge.
Now… she doesn’t know what she feels, other than heartache.
“I’m… sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” Dotty says, looking a little contrite.
Sable waves it off. “Don’t worry, you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just fresh, still.”
Conversation dies down as eating takes over, and Sable does end up getting her second portion, as does Mariam… with some encouragement from Sable. She catches an interesting look on Barbara’s face as Sable passes her Mariam’s plate again, followed by a knowing wink.
* * *
Dotty’s questions relent after that, and the rest of the evening is spent teaching Sable to play a few card games after dinner, only for all three of them to be beaten by her time and time again.
“Maybe we should take you to Vegas and let you gamble,” Mariam joked after their third straight loss to her girlfriend.
When the time comes to leave for the night, Barbara packages leftovers for them and hands it to Sable in a paper bag. She follows Sable and Mariam out to the porch.
“Thanks again for the leftovers, Ms. Barbara,” Sable says at the door.
“Yeah, thanks, Mom.”
“Oh, no worries, I saw how much Sable enjoyed it. There’s also some cake from yesterday in there.”
“Nice! What kind?” Mariam asks as she hugs her mother goodbye.
“You’ll just have to see,” she says in a sing-song voice as she hugs Sable, too. “Goodbye, my loves. Be safe getting home.”
“We will,” Sable and Mariam say together, and then it’s over; the door closes and they’re off to the car. Mariam again opens the gate for Sable, then her car door. After Sable takes a seat and closes the door, Mariam goes around to the driver’s side, gets in, and starts the car.
“Not so bad, right?” Mariam teases as she pulls out, her eyes on the road.
“I love your family, Mariam,” Sable replies softly, her voice full of emotion. Mariam flickers her gaze over to find Sable watching her with warm eyes.
“Yeah, Mom and Dotty are pretty great,” Mariam confirms as the car accelerates. She feels Sable’s gaze smolder into her. “You’re pretty great, too.”
“I love you, Mariam.”
“I love you too, Sable.”