Alvarez was dozing in the armchair with the television murmuring, and she woke when the key turned and took one look at the woman coming through the door in a man's work jacket with mascara on her cheeks. And bless her, asked, "No questions at all. " She just squeezed Nathan's arm on her way out and whispered, "There's leftover soup on the stove. She looks like she could use it. Then she was gone and it was just the two of them and the radiator ticking and the sound of a child breathing down the hall. Victoria stood in the middle of the little living room and turned in a slow circle taking it in the old plaid couch.
The coffee table with a ring stain nobody had ever managed to get out. The bookshelf with more of Lily's picture books than his, and the refrigerator. She walked to it slowly, the refrigerator absolutely covered in a child's drawings. Crayon sons with faces. A stick figure man with a stick figure girl holding hands under a wobbly rainbow.
A card that said Dy in enormous unsteady letters. The L missing entirely. Victoria stood in front of that refrigerator and Nathan watched something come apart in her very quietly. She made this, she said. Every week there's a new one.
I run out of magnets. He rubbed the back of his neck. You want some soup? Mrs. Alvarez will haunt me if you don't eat it.
Victoria didn't turn around. She was still looking at the drawings. In my whole life, she said, "I have never once had anything like this on my refrigerator. " Nathan didn't know what to say to that, so he heated the soup. She ate it at the little kitchen table, both hands around the bowl. And it was the strangest thing.
This woman, he'd seen command rooms full of the most powerful people in the country, sitting in his kitchen in a jacket that swallowed her eating chicken soup like she hadn't eaten in a week. Maybe she hadn't. Maybe you could have everything and forget to eat. Your dress is soaked through, Nathan said, noticing. You'll catch cold.
Hang on. He went to his room and came back with an old gray t-shirt, soft and washed thin from a hundred cycles faded lettering across the chest from a hardware store that had closed years ago. He set it on the table beside her. "Bathrooms down the hall," he said. "There's clean towels under the sink.
I'll put your dress on the radiator. It'll be dry by morning. " Victoria picked up the shirt and looked at it. Something crossed her face that he couldn't read. "You're just going to hand me a shirt," she said. And put me on your couch and that's it.
That's it. You don't want anything? Nathan met her eyes steadily. Victoria, he said, I've got a 7-year-old asleep in the next room and a woman in my kitchen who's had the worst night of her life. What kind of man do you think I am?
She looked at him for a long moment. I don't know, she said quietly. That's the problem. I've never met one like you before. I keep waiting for the catch.