Congratulations, Olivia. A longer pause. Then come to dinner Saturday. Both of you. I'm cooking again.
He wrote. Should I be concerned? I've been practicing. He wrote all week. I can now make two things that don't involve burning.
A pause. One of them might still be a little burned, but intentionally he typed, "We'll be there." He put the phone in his pocket. He turned back to the property. He looked at what they had built over these weeks, the framing solid and true, the damage addressed at the root. Every compromised piece replaced with something that would last.
He thought about the fact that the work was almost done, the contract was nearly complete. The legitimate professional reason for his presence on this property was running out. He thought about what happened after. He thought, "Well, you find out what's real by whether it continues without the structure that built it." He went back to work. That Saturday dinner was different from the first one.
Not louder, not more formal. Different in the way that things are different when everyone in the room has stopped pretending something and the pretending was the last piece of distance between them. Richard opened the door and looked 5 years younger. Not literally, but there was something in his face that had eased the particular relief of a man who has been quietly worried about something for a very long time and has just seen the worry resolved. Amara walked in with her chess strategy notebook, which Richard had apparently requested.
She bring so they could debrief the Bishop Gambit situation in person. They disappeared to the study within 11 minutes of arrival. The sound of Richard's voice and Amara's explaining something very patiently fading down the hall which left Marcus in the kitchen where Olivia was cooking. She heard him come in. She didn't turn around immediately.
She kept doing what she was doing, something on the stove that smelled genuinely good, which was either progress or a very different kind of setup. And she said without looking, "I know what you're thinking." "What am I thinking?" he said. "You're thinking. Is it actually going to be good this time?" She turned. She was in the same nonwork clothes as the first dinner real clothes lived in ones.
And she had a dish towel over one shoulder and her hair down in a way she'd only done a few times around him and she looked in this specific moment like herself in a way he wasn't sure she was entirely aware of. Is it? He said try it and tell me. She handed him a small piece of bread with something on it. He tried it.
It was good. Actually good. You've been practicing. He said, "Every day this week," she said, "I decided that if I can run a multinational company, I can learn to cook. It's just systems and practice.
Is that how you approached it?" "I approached it with a spreadsheet," she said. He stared at her. "I'm not going to apologize for the spreadsheet," she said. "I'm not asking you to." "It worked," she said firmly. "It did," he agreed.
She turned back to the stove and he leaned against the counter and the kitchen was warm and quiet except for the sound of the cooking and the distant drift of Amara explaining something about chess to Richard in language that was probably not entirely necessary to specify. How are you actually? Marcus asked. She considered it genuine consideration. I'm the most tired I've been in a long time and also the most clear.