Chapter 2: The Dinner Party
The mahogany table gleamed under the late afternoon sun, a deep, liquid brown. Fiona had polished it herself. Adam could smell the citrus-and-beeswax scent of the cleaner, overlaying the room’s permanent notes of old paper from the built-in shelves and the faint, ghostly lavender from a new candle flickering on the sideboard.
Three places were set. Precise. Deliberate.
Gina stood in the doorway, her arms crossed. She wore the jeans she'd been gardening in earlier, smudged at the knees. "I thought you were ordering pizza for your peace offering."
Fiona's smile didn't waver. It softened, if anything, the way one might smile at a child who'd said something accidentally rude. "I was. But then I found the brisket in the freezer. The one from your mother's recipe box." She was already moving toward the kitchen, her voice trailing like she was sharing a delight rather than deflecting a blow. "You mentioned it the other night. The Friday-night brisket. I thought — what better peace offering than a memory? Something that actually means something."
The dismissal was seamless. Gina's barb had been a test — will she flinch? — and Fiona hadn't so much ignored it as absorbed it, letting it pass through her without resistance. There was no defensiveness, no counterstrike. Just momentum.
Gina stood frozen, her arms still crossed, the weight of her own attack hanging unanswered. She looked at Adam, who was still by the window. He didn't meet her eyes.
"I'm just going to do a quick change," Gina said, her voice smaller. She turned and went upstairs.
Gina said nothing. She went to the bedroom and closed the door.
Fiona selected a bottle from the wine rack Gina had curated over years. A Bordeaux. “This one has good structure,” she said, more to herself than to Adam. She uncorked it with a confident twist, not bothering to let it breathe. She poured a taste into one of the crystal glasses and brought it to him. “Here. Tell me if it’s sound.”
He took the glass automatically. The wine was bold, tannic, a little aggressive. “It’s fine.”
“It’s more than fine. It’s assertive. Like you chose it.” She took the glass back and finished the taste herself, her lips touching the rim where his had been. “Perfect.”
When Gina returned, wearing a simple wrap dress, her hair hastily smoothed, the table was already lit. Napkins folded. The Bordeaux open between the settings. Gina’s eyes went straight to the bottle. Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
Dinner was brisket, and the room was heavy with the smell of the mother's kitchen. Fiona served Adam first, carving the meat with precise slices and placing them on his plate before filling Gina's. She poured his wine first, too, holding the bottle with both hands, a small ceremony of deference.
"This will age beautifully," Fiona said, nodding at the glass. "Try it. Tell me if it's right."
Adam tasted. It was good wine, better than what they usually bought. "It's excellent."
"Good." Fiona smiled, settling into her seat. "I want to get the details right. That's what the gallery job is teaching me — that everything is about presentation. How a piece is lit, how it's framed, how it's placed in relation to what surrounds it. The collector never notices the curation. They just feel it working on them."
Gina's fork hovered. "I picked that wine for our anniversary last year."
Fiona's eyes widened with delight. "Did you? Then you have impeccable taste. I'm learning from you." She served herself a slice of brisket, unhurried. "I hope that's not presumptuous. Learning from you."
Gina looked at Adam. He was cutting his meat, not looking up. The silence stretched, and then Gina put her fork down. "It's very good, Fiona."
"Thank you." Fiona's smile was warm, guileless. "Your mother would be proud of how it turned out."
“Do you remember,” Fiona said, sitting back down, “that gallery interview I had? They called this afternoon.”
Adam nodded, chewing just to have something to do.
“I got the position. Curatorial assistant.” She let the news settle, her eyes shining. “It means I’ll be meeting collectors. Donors. Important people. I’ll need to know how to talk to them. How to present.” Her gaze swept the table, the room, and landed on Gina. “I learned so much just watching you, Gina. Your taste. Your eye for detail. But watching isn’t enough anymore. I need to embody it.”
Gina looked up, confused. “What does that mean?”
“It means I need to practice. In a real environment.” Fiona’s smile was radiant, guileless. “So, I was thinking. Let me take over the dinners. The planning, the shopping, the execution. Just for a week. As a project. You’ve been carrying that burden for so long. Let me lift it. And let me learn.”
The air left the room. The request was monumental, wrapped in flattery and framed as a temporary favor. It wasn’t a request for a single meal. It was a petition for control of the household’s heart—the kitchen, the menu, the rhythm of their evenings. It was the herbal tea and the moved furniture, now formalized into a policy.
Gina stared at her plate. Adam could see the war inside her. The part of her that was insulted, territorial, furious. And the other part, the deeper part Fiona had somehow located and tapped into—the part that was tired, that found the burden of deciding what was for dinner every night to be a quiet, daily agony. The part that wanted, more than anything, to be relieved of command.
“It’s a huge help for me,” Fiona pressed, her voice soft, persuasive. “And it would give you a break. You could read. Take long baths. Remember what it’s like to not be responsible for everyone’s sustenance. Think of it as a sabbatical.”
“I… I don’t know,” Gina whispered.
“Just try it. A week. See how it feels.” Fiona leaned forward, capturing Gina’s hesitant gaze. “If you hate it, we stop. No harm done. But what if you love it?”
The manipulation was masterful. It offered Gina the illusion of a choice, of an exit, while painting the refusal as a rejection of a gift, of personal growth, of peace.
Gina’s eyes flickered to Adam. A plea. Help me. Say no.
He opened his mouth. The words were there. This is too much. This is our home. But Fiona’s grey eyes slid to him, calm and certain. They held the memory of the heater, of the dish towel, of her saying, She’s happier when the decisions are made for her. Was she? Gina did seem perpetually wound tight, snapping over misplaced keys, sighing over grocery lists. What if Fiona was right? What if this was a kind of mercy?
His hesitation was the answer Gina needed. Her face shut down, the hope in her brown eyes snuffing out like a candle pinched between fingers.
“Okay,” Gina said, the word a hollow exhale. “A week.”
“Wonderful!” Fiona clapped her hands together, a single, soft sound. “I’m so excited. And don’t worry, I’ll stick to your budgets. I’m very good with resources.”
The rest of the meal passed in a blur of Fiona’s plans—menus themed around regions, sourcing local produce, proper wine pairings. Gina ate silently, finishing everything on her plate, including the wine she hated. She drank it like medicine, each sip a conscious submission.
When it was over, Gina stood quickly. “I’ll clean up.”
“Absolutely not,” Fiona said, already stacking plates with brisk efficiency. “This is still part of my offering. Go. Relax.”
Gina lingered for a moment, a stranger in her own dining room, then drifted toward the living room. She didn’t look back.
Adam carried his own plate to the kitchen. Fiona was at the sink, the water steaming.
“That went well,” she said, not turning around.
“Did it?”
“She agreed, didn’t she? Freely. You heard her.” Fiona scrubbed a pot with focused intensity. “She wants this, Adam. She’s just been conditioned to think she shouldn’t. To think her worth is tied to that exhaustion.” She finally glanced over her shoulder. “You should go talk to her. Tell her you think it’s a great idea. Reinforce it.”
He felt like a puppet, his strings being pulled by hands he couldn’t see. “I don’t know if it is a great idea.”
Fiona shut the water off. The silence was sudden and heavy. She dried her hands on a towel, slowly, then turned to face him, leaning against the counter.
“Let me ask you something,” she said, her voice low and devoid of its earlier pleasantness. “When was the last time she initiated anything? Sex, a vacation, a change in this house? When was the last time she made a decision and stuck to it with real joy, not just obligation?”
He couldn’t answer. The memories were all fuzzy, dated.
“She’s waiting for permission,” Fiona said. “From you. But you’re not giving it. You’re just coexisting. So I’m giving it to her. Permission to stop. To let someone else steer.” She took a step toward him. The kitchen felt dangerously small. “You can either help her transition, or you can stand there and make it harder for her. Which is it?”
He backed out of the kitchen, her gaze following him, a physical weight.
In the living room, Gina was curled in the armchair, staring at the blank television screen. Her posture was that of a child sent to time-out.
He sat on the sofa opposite her. “That was… a surprise.”
“She’s very persuasive,” Gina said to the dark screen.
“We don’t have to do it. The dinner thing. I can tell her no.”
Gina turned her head, her eyes finding his. They were empty of anger, which was worse. There was only a deep, weary resignation. “Why? She’s right."
She’s right.
The words hung between them, a final, soft surrender. Adam watched his wife’s profile, the way her hazel eyes refused to focus on anything real in the room. The fight was gone, replaced by a numb acceptance that felt more unsettling than any argument.
In the following days, a new rhythm established itself. Fiona’s project began.
That following week the house changed slowly hands.
Meals appeared at seven, plated with a restaurant's precision. Laundry folded itself into unfamiliar, satisfying stacks. And Gina receded, slowly, into the garden, into the study, into the upper rooms where the windows faced the trees instead of the kitchen.
The coffee was the first thing he noticed. Adam liked it black, two sugars, strong enough to warp a spoon. He'd made it himself for years, or Gina had, in the half-awake silence of early mornings. Now it appeared on the counter, already poured, the mug warmed, the sugar already dissolved. He drank it without thinking, the way you drink something made by someone who knows you.
He didn't notice until the fourth morning that the mug was one Gina never used — a heavy ceramic one he'd bought at a flea market years ago, chipped at the rim, comfortable in his hand. Gina's mugs were delicate, floral things. This one was his. Fiona must have found it at the back of the cupboard.
He said nothing. He drank his coffee.
And besides his mug of coffee, Fiona began leaving another mug — Gina's chamomile, steeped exactly four minutes, the honey stirred in before the water cooled. The first day, Gina made her own in pointed silence. The second day, she poured Fiona's down the sink without a word. On the third morning she stood in the kitchen doorway, watching the steam rise off the mug Fiona had prepared, and Adam saw the calculation in her face — the cost of refusing weighed against the cost of accepting.
She took the mug. Drank it down. Put the cup in the sink and said, "Thank you for the tea," like she was rehearsing a foreign language she didn't want to speak.
Fiona smiled, small and private. "Of course."
Gina tried, in her own way. One evening she came down in a pair of yoga pants and a fitted tank, her hair loose around her shoulders. It was a costume, clearly — she never wore yoga pants. She moved through the living room with a self-conscious sway, settling on the sofa near Adam, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm.
"You look comfortable," Fiona said from the armchair, her tone light, approving. "Those look nice. New?"
Gina stiffened almost imperceptibly. "Old. Just found them again."
"Mm." Fiona returned to her book, but her smile was there, private, as if she'd logged the attempt in a ledger. As if she found it endearing.
Adam watched Gina tug the hem of the tank down over her hips, suddenly self-conscious, and something in his chest ached. She was trying to be someone she wasn't, and she didn't even know who she was trying to imitate.
So Fiona offered the next day a shopping trip, her voice light — "I have a few hours tomorrow, let me take you to find some things Adam would actually notice." The flush that crept up Gina's neck told Adam she'd been caught. He hadn't mentioned the yoga pants to Fiona. He hadn't needed to.
Gina looked at him, a flash of plea in her eyes. He opened his mouth, but instead of saying no, he heard himself ask, "Do you have time for that kind of errand?"
Fiona's grey eyes crinkled. "I make time for what matters."
Gina went. She came back with bags she didn't open that evening, and when Fiona brought one into the living room, holding up a deep burgundy top, the neckline lower than anything Gina owned, she turned to Adam and said, "Isn't this perfect? Tell her. Don't you think she'd look great in this?"
Her hand was on Gina's shoulder. Gina was looking at her lap.
"Yeah," Adam said. "You should keep it."
Gina's shoulders dropped. A small, precise surrender.
Gina began to spend longer hours in the garden, pruning with a ferocious concentration that left her hands scratched and dirty.
“She’s finding her outlet,” Fiona said to Adam one afternoon, watching Gina from the kitchen window. She was kneading dough for bread, her arms dusted with flour. “Physical work for a physical release. It’s healthier than bottling it all up, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “The thermostat in my room is acting strange again. It’s either an arctic chill or a sauna. Would you mind taking another look?”
The callback to that first inspection was deliberate. He felt it. “I can call the HVAC guy.”
“Oh, that’s wasteful. You fixed it perfectly last time. It just needs a quick adjustment.” She wiped her hands, leaving a smudge of flour on her hip. “Now’s good. She’s… occupied.”
He climbed the stairs to her room, the air growing warmer with each step. Her door was open. The bed was made with military tightness. Several of Gina's art books were stacked on the desk, a jasmine-scented candle replacing the lavender.
The radiator hissed softly. He went to the thermostat, fiddling with the plastic cover. He heard the door click shut behind him.
"It just needs a calibrated touch," Fiona said from close behind him. She didn't sound shy or meek. "The mechanism is simple. It responds to direct pressure."
He felt her body heat against his back. She didn't touch him, but her proximity was absolute. He kept his eyes on the thermostat, his fingers clumsy on the dial.
"You see?" she whispered, her breath stirring the hair at his nape. "You turn it one way, it's too cold. The other way, it's stifling. The trick is finding the precise point of balance." She reached around him, her arm brushing his chest. Her fingers closed over his on the dial, cool and certain. She guided his hand a millimeter to the right. "There. That's the sweet spot."
He was frozen. Her other hand came to rest lightly on his waist, a claim more than a caress.
"Gina wouldn't know how to do this," she murmured, her lips almost at his ear. "She'd call a repairman, spend the money, wait for someone else to solve it. She doesn't understand that some systems require personal, constant attention." Her hand tightened, pulling him back a fraction until his body was aligned with hers. "Do you?"
He turned, breaking her hold. Her grey eyes were calm, waiting. She didn't look rejected. She looked like she'd expected this.
She took a single step back, granting him space that felt less like retreat and more like tactical realignment.
"The balance is delicate," she said, her voice returning to its pleasant pitch. She walked to her desk and picked up one of Gina's art books, tracing the gilded edge of the cover. "Gina let me borrow this. The use of light in these Renaissance portraits is extraordinary. It doesn't illuminate everything. Just the chosen subject, leaving the rest in supportive shadow."
Adam's pulse was still drumming in his ears. "The thermostat should hold now."
"I'm sure it will." She didn't look up from the page. "Thank you for your very direct attention."
He left, the click of the door behind him sounding final.
Downstairs, the kitchen was empty, the kneaded dough resting under a cloth like a sleeping thing. He found Gina outside, on her knees in the herb bed, yanking at weeds with a focused violence. Dirt was ground into the denim over her knees.
“All fixed?” she asked without looking up. Her voice was raw.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She sat back on her heels, wiping her forehead with the back of a muddy wrist. She looked at the house, at the window of Fiona’s room. “She sees things, you know. Things I miss. What we need.”
“Gina,” he started, but the apology, the explanation, stuck in his throat.
She stood, brushing dirt from her hands. “She’s making coq au vin tonight. Your favorite. She asked me what you loved, and I told her.”
A strange, hollow laugh escaped her. “I guess I’m still good for that, at least. The archival work.”
The garden was dark by the time she came in. Adam was at the kitchen table, nursing the last of his coffee, the house quiet around him. Fiona had gone upstairs an hour ago. He heard Gina's footsteps pause in the doorway, felt her presence there like a held breath.
"Adam." Her voice was raw, scraped clean of its usual careful composure. "Can we talk?"
He turned. She stood in the doorway with dirt still on her knees, her hands clasped in front of her like she was holding something that might spill. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry.
"I feel like I'm disappearing from my own house," she said. No preamble. No accusation. Just the fact of it, laid flat on the table between them.
He opened his mouth, and the words came out before he'd weighed them. "You're being dramatic. She's just trying to help."
Gina flinched as if he'd struck her. "She's not trying to help, Adam. She's —"
"Helping," he said, and heard the warmth in his own voice, the reasonableness of it. "You've been exhausted for years. You said so yourself. She's taking things off your plate. That's all."
The silence stretched. Gina's hands unclasped, fell to her sides. She looked at him for a long moment, and he saw something close in her face — a door shutting, quietly, without a slam.
"Okay," she said. Just that. She turned and went upstairs, and he let her go, and told himself he'd said the right thing.
Two days later, Gina was in the kitchen before dawn. Adam woke to the smell of frying onions and garlic, something rich and slow moving in a pot on the stove. She stood at the counter in her old robe, sleeves pushed up, her grandmother's wooden spoon in her hand.
"Pastel de choclo," she said when he came in, not turning around. "My grandmother's recipe. She made it every Easter. I haven't —" She paused, her shoulders tightening. "I thought I'd bring something of her back."
He watched her work. The corn was ground by hand, the beef simmered with cumin and raisins, the dish assembled in layers with a patience he hadn't seen in her in weeks. She was meticulous, precise, her movements speaking a language older than the house they lived in.
Fiona appeared in the doorway as Gina was pulling it from the oven. She wore a silk robe, her hair loose, her face soft with sleep and something like affection.
"That smells incredible," Fiona said. "What is it?"
"My grandmother's pastel de choclo." Gina's voice was careful. "It's a family recipe."
Fiona moved to the counter, peering at the dish with genuine interest. "You know, it would do better with a little smoked paprika. Just a whisper. And if you pulled it out five minutes earlier, you'd keep the corn bright instead of letting it brown." She picked up the spice jar, already unscrewing the cap. "May I?"
Gina's hand tightened on the wooden spoon. "That's not how my grandmother made it."
"I know." Fiona smiled, warm and reasonable, and dusted a fine layer of paprika across the top. "But this is better, isn't it? You can taste the difference. You'll see."
Gina looked at Adam. It was a small look, a brief one, but it carried everything — a plea, a question, a last hope that he might say something, anything, to stop this.
He picked up the plate Fiona slid toward him. He took a bite.
"It's good," he said. And it was.
Gina stood at the stove for a long moment. Then she set down the wooden spoon — her grandmother's spoon — and walked out of the kitchen without eating.
The pastel de choclo sat on the table, browning slightly at the edges, and Adam kept eating, and Fiona talked about how the dish could be improved further, and somewhere in the house a door closed softly upstairs.
He couldn't remember when he started to stare, when the casual glances turned into hungry, lingering stares. Fiona, reaching for the top shelf of the pantry, her sweater riding up to show a pale strip of stomach. Fiona, stretching after dinner, arms overhead, the hem lifting just enough to glimpse the lower curve of her breast before she settled. Walking up the stairs in front of him, her yoga pants clinging to the lean muscle of her thighs, the sway of her hips just a fraction more deliberate than it needed to be. He told himself he imagined it. He knew he didn't.
Gina caught him looking once. She was in the doorway to the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand, and he was standing at the foot of the stairs, watching Fiona's backside ascend. Their eyes met. He looked away first, and the glass in her hand trembled — just slightly, just once — before she turned and went back into the kitchen.
She didn't say anything. Neither did he. The silence was its own confession.
She gave Gina four days of peace, and then she started collecting. A hand on Gina's back as Fiona passed her at the stove. A hug after dinner that lasted one beat too long, Gina's arms rigid at her sides. Adam saw her brace each time, saw the muscles of her shoulders tighten before contact. And then, on the fourth day, she stopped bracing. She went still instead — accepting the claim the way you accept weather. When Fiona hugged her goodnight, Gina's hands stayed at her sides, but she didn't flinch.
Fiona caught Adam's eye over Gina's shoulder. There was no triumph in it. That was what terrified him. It was just confirmation.
And then, the meals. It happened the night after Adam and Fiona had shared the lamb, close in the firelight, the wine warm between them. He was alone with Gina in the kitchen, clearing plates, and he thought he was helping. He thought he was echoing something she'd said — she'd mentioned wanting to feel lighter, hadn't she? — when he said, "You know, after that tenderloin and the wine, I think we should eat a bit lighter for a while."
Gina's hands paused on the plate she was holding. She didn't look up. "She told you to say that?"
"No," he said, too quickly. "I just —"
"Did she?"
He couldn't answer. Because she hadn't needed to. The thought was already his — he'd simply borrowed it from her, worn it like her sweater, and now it was coming out of his mouth as if it were his own.
Gina set the plate down carefully. "Okay."
The next night, dinner was already plated when they sat down. Adam's plate had a thick slice of pork loin, a heap of mashed potatoes, a glass of the heavy red he preferred. Gina's had a small salmon fillet, a modest mound of greens, a slice of lemon.
Fiona sat at the head of the table — she'd drifted there without anyone noticing — and unfolded her napkin. "I noticed we were all feeling heavy after the last few meals. I thought a lighter hand might suit us better."
Gina looked at the salmon. At the greens. At the glass of water, where her wine should have been.
She picked up her fork.
Adam watched her eat the salad, one small bite at a time, without looking at either of them. When she finished, she cleared her plate and went upstairs without saying goodnight.
The salad arrived the next night too. And the night after that. Gina ate it, and said nothing, and Adam let her, and Fiona smiled at them both from the head of the table, and the house got quieter and quieter around them.
The touches became more frequent. A hand on his shoulder as she reached past him for a pepper mill. Her hip brushing his arm as she cleared his plate. She began wearing clothes that announced her: a skirt that hugged her curves, a top with a neckline that dipped just low enough to draw the eye. She moved through the house with a new ownership, her presence expanding to fill the spaces Gina was vacating.
One night after dinner, Gina retreated to the study with a book. Fiona stayed in the living room with Adam, swirling the last of her wine.
“She seems more relaxed,” Fiona observed. The firelight played across the silk of her blouse. “Less tense in the shoulders. Don’t you think?”
“I suppose.”
“It’s because the weight of decisions is lifting. She can finally breathe.” She set her glass down and stood, stretching her arms above her head with a faint, contented sigh. The movement pulled her clothing taut. She walked to the window, looking out at the dark garden. “You know, my father was a lot like you. A natural leader. But my mother was always competing with him, drowning out his voice. It made the house so loud.”
She turned and leaned against the window frame. “It’s so quiet here now. So peaceful. That’s what happens when everyone is in their rightful role.”
Adam felt a strange, complicit warmth at her words. The idea of being a “natural leader” was a foreign compliment, a costume she was tailoring just for him and insisting he wear.
She pushed off the window and came to sit on the arm of his chair, a bold, intimate perch. She was close enough that he could see the individual lashes framing her grey eyes. “Do you feel it?” she asked, her voice a conspiratorial murmur. “The shift?”
He could smell the jasmine on her skin, see the faint pulse at her throat. “Fiona…”
“Shh.” She placed a single, cool finger against his lips. The touch was electrifying, a silent command that stopped his words completely. She held it there for a heartbeat, two, her gaze locked on his. “Don’t overthink it. Just feel it. This is how it’s meant to be.”
From the hallway, they heard the soft click of the study door closing. Gina had gone upstairs.
Fiona smiled, slow and knowing. She removed her finger, letting it trail down his chin before she stood. “Goodnight, Adam,” she said, her tone now carrying the gentle authority of a dismissal. “Sleep well.”
He sat in the silent, fire-lit room long after she had gone, the ghost of her touch still burning on his lips, the new and troubling structure of his home settling firmly into place around him. Upstairs, he found Gina already in bed, the lamp off, her body a still mound facing the wall. He undressed in the dark and slid under the covers, the space between them cold and wide. He wanted to say something, to bridge the gap, but any words felt like lies or an admission of guilt he couldn’t yet name.
Dinner was a quiet, excruciating performance. The coq au vin was rich, perfectly balanced, a dish Gina prepared only on birthdays or anniversaries. Fiona served it with the quiet pride of a creator.
“Gina said you adore this,” Fiona said, spooning more onto Adam’s plate. “The key is the brandy. You have to let it flambé completely, burn off the alcohol but leave the punch. It’s a risk. But worthwhile.”
Gina pushed a pearl onion around her bowl. “It’s very good.”
“I’m glad.” Fiona sipped her wine. “It’s important to honor the classics. To know what works and replicate it with respect.” She turned to Gina, her head tilted. “You look tired. The gardening is too much. You should let me hire a boy to do the heavy work.”
“I like it,” Gina said, but her protest was soft, automatic.
“You like the idea of it,” Fiona corrected gently. “The accomplishment. But the actual labor is aging you. Those hands.” She reached across the table and took Gina’s wrist, turning her hand over to expose the scratches and dirt-stained nails. Her thumb stroked the calloused palm. “These are a lawyer’s hands. Or an artist’s. Not a gardener’s.”
Gina didn’t pull away. She stared at her own hand, imprisoned in Fiona’s graceful grip, as if it belonged to someone else.
“I’ll call the service tomorrow,” Fiona stated, releasing her. The matter was decided.
Later, while Gina soaked in a bath, Fiona found Adam in the living room. She carried two glasses of brandy. She handed him one, their fingers meeting briefly on the crystal.
“To equilibrium,” she said, and drank.
He followed suit, the liquor burning a warm path down his throat.
“She’s almost there,” Fiona murmured, looking toward the stairs. “The peace is settling in her. You can see it in the way she moves now. Slower. Less brittle.” She moved to the sofa and sat, not in the corner, but in the center. She patted the space beside her. “Sit. You’re hovering.”
He sat, leaving a careful foot of cushion between them.
“She’ll join us soon, and she’ll see us like this, talking calmly,” Fiona said, her eyes fixed on him. “And it will look normal to her. Correct. It will feel like the house is finally at rest.” She leaned forward, placing her empty glass on the table with a soft click. “Because it is. I’ve handled everything. All the noise is gone.”
He could hear the old pipes groan as Gina shifted in the tub upstairs.
Her hand came up, not to his lips this time, but to the side of his neck. Her fingertips pressed gently into the tight cord of muscle there. It was a shockingly intimate, therapeutic gesture. He flinched.
“See?” she whispered, her other hand coming up to cradle his jaw, holding him still. Her grey eyes were depthless. “You’re so tight.” Her thumb stroked the line of his artery, feeling the rapid beat beneath the skin. “This is the last thing you’re clinging to. This guilt. This idea that you’re betraying her by accepting a better system.” Her voice was hypnotic, a soft stream of logic. “You’re not. You’re helping her. You’re giving her the only thing that truly helps her: freedom from the burden of choice.”
Her face was inches from his. He could see the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, the precise curve of her lower lip. The brandy and her scent and the overwhelming quiet of the house converged into a potent fog.