Not at Marcus at the truth of it. He meant it sincerely. He genuinely believed my quietness was satisfaction. He didn't understand it was survival. Did you tell him that?
I did. She paused. He didn't say much after, but he reached across the table and he held my hand for a minute. And for my father, that's the equivalent of a 3-hour apology. Marcus looked at his coffee.
That's something. It's a start. She shifted again. How's Dileia? The question surprised him.
Not that she asked, but how naturally, she asked it. Like his daughter was already part of the landscape of this conversation. She's good. She's got a complicated relationship with a girl named Josephine at school. Third grade frenemy situation.
Exactly that. A moment. A comfortable one. The kind that only exists between people who've already been through something real. Marcus Clare said, "Yeah, I meant what I said at the marina about you being solid ground."
A pause. I've had six days in my own apartment in my own life thinking about it without a flood and a family confrontation on top of it and it's still true. He was quiet. I'm not asking you for anything specific right now. She said, "I know your life has parts in it that are complicated.
I know Dia is the main thing and I'd never ask you to put anything ahead of that." Another pause. I just want you to know that what I feel isn't circumstantial. It didn't come from one night in a storm. It's been there a long time and I'm done pretending it isn't.
Marcus sat at his kitchen table in the quiet of his house with his daughter asleep down the hall and the river making its low sound in the dark outside and he said, "Can I take you to dinner?" She laughed. It was a real one, surprised and warm and nothing like the controlled almost smiles he'd seen at his kitchen table. "Yes," she said. "You can take me to dinner."
They went to a place on the river. Nothing formal. A restaurant Marcus liked because the food was good and the lighting was dim enough that nobody felt like they were being watched. Clare drove herself met him there, which he appreciated without saying why she was showing up on her own terms to her own choice from her own car. She was wearing a dark green dress, nothing like the silver one, and she'd pulled her hair back, and she looked like someone who'd gotten some sleep and made peace with something.
They sat and ordered, and the conversation moved easily, the way it had in his kitchen, no performance, no managed space between what they said and what they meant. She told him about a vendor dispute she'd settled that week involving a 40-foot sport cruiser. A misread invoice and a third party who turned out to be the actual problem the whole time. He told her about the hull repair and the specific satisfaction of grinding back a section of pipel that looked destroyed and watching it come back solid. She asked about the work in a way that meant she'd been thinking about it.
He asked about hers in a way that meant the same. Over dessert. Neither of them ordered. They just kept their coffee. She said, "Delia, tell me something true about her."