Don't look at me, he said. She did her own research. She has sources, Emily asked Amara. I have three sources, Amara confirmed. I can send them to you.
Please do. Emily said with total seriousness. I want to be rigorous. Amara nodded and returned to her pasta, apparently satisfied that the adults at the table were operating at an acceptable intellectual level. Marcus watched Emily across the table.
Watch the way she listened to Amara. Not with the polite half attention that adults gave children, the performance of interest, but actually listening, tracking, responding to the real content of what his daughter was saying. He watched Amara noticed the difference. He watched his daughter, who had inherited Rene's gift for reading a room, decide something. After dinner, while Marcus was cleaning up, Amara appeared beside Emily at the living room bookshelf and said, "Without buildup, did my dad tell you about my mom?" Emily went still, then turned to look at Amara carefully.
"A little," she said. "Not everything, just that she was someone very important." Amara considered this. "She was the best person," she said. "I only remember some things. But the things I remember are really good." "What do you remember most?" Emily asked.
Marcus had stopped moving in the kitchen. He was standing at the sink, not washing anything, just listening. Amara thought about it. Her voice, she said when she sang. She wasn't actually that good at singing, but she didn't care.
And that made it better somehow. She paused. And the way she looked at my dad, like he was the funniest person she'd ever met. Even when he wasn't saying anything funny, she tilted her head. You kind of look at him like that sometimes.
The kitchen was very quiet, Emily said softly. He is pretty funny sometimes. He thinks he's funnier than he is, Amara said. But the effort is charming. Marcus put down the dish towel.
I can hear both of you, he said. We know, Amara said, and exchanged a look with Emily that was so precisely conspiratorial, so completely Reneean miniature that Marcus had to turn back to the sink for a moment and do something with his face. After Amara went to bed after the fish had been checked, the book had been read, the light had been turned off, and Amara had delivered her final verdict on the evening. She's good, Daddy. She's actually good.
Marcus found Emily standing at the window in the living room, looking out at the street below. He stood behind her for a moment. "You okay?" she turned. Her eyes were bright but steady. "She asked me about Renee," she said.