"Your skin is not like mine." He turned, balancing precariously on the stool. Tyen stood just behind him, her head tilted, her gaze intense and unnervingly analytical. She was not looking at his face. She was staring at his chest.
Daniel felt a hot flush crawl up his neck. He was not a modest man, but this was different. Her stare was not shy, nor was it flirtatious. It was the look of a student examining a new and complicated subject. "It's just work.
It's hot." He stammered, reaching for the shirt. She held up a hand. A small sharp gesture that stopped him. "No, I see."
She took a step closer. He was trapped on the stool, the beam above him, her scrutiny upon him. "The hair is dark, but the skin is white," she observed, as if noting the difference between pine and aspen. She watched the muscles in his arms as he held the tools. "It moves under the skin."
"Tyen, this is it's not proper," he said, his voice strained. She ignored him, her gaze traveling from his shoulders to his abdomen. She saw the old faded scars from his time in the war, the white lines that criss-crossed his ribs. Her eyes were full of a profound, almost scientific curiosity. "Is this why white women want babies?"
The question struck him silent. He could only stare at her. "What?" "The chest," she said, gesturing with her chin. "It is strong.
They see this. They want a child from a strong man to be safe. This is why," he laughed, a short, sharp, nervous sound. He dropped from the stool, snatching his shirt from the chair and pulling it on, fumbling with the buttons. No, that's not People don't have children because a man's got a strong chest.
It's It's more complicated than that. Why? It just is. It's about family. It's about love, I suppose.
He finished the buttons, feeling armored again, though her gaze had not softened. "Love," she repeated. The word sounded foreign on her tongue, an object she was tasting for the first time. Love is strength sometimes," he said, turning back to the beam, his face hidden from her. "Now I need to finish this before the cold sets in."
She did not leave. She sat on the floor, her back against the far wall, and watched him work for another hour. Her question had unsettled something in him. It was the innocence of it, the way she cut through all the layers of politeness and ritual he was used to, and struck at the bare, simple truth. He was strong.
He had survived. And she, who had survived nothing but cruelty, was trying to understand the mechanics of his world, his body, with the same intensity she applied to setting a snare or grinding corn. From that day, the nature of her questions changed. The wall of respectful distance he'd so carefully built between them began to crumble, breached not by him, but by her relentless, guileless curiosity. They were mending a fence line, the air so cold their breath plumed in front of them.