A pause. The girl turned to look at her with the specific expression she saved for situations where the adult had done something unexpected. Then she turned back to the stove and gave the oatmeal one more stir and put the lid on and came to the table and sat down. She sat very straight with her hands in her lap in the posture of someone presenting a composed exterior as aggressively as possible. Odora sat across from her.
The kitchen was dim, the lamp was on, but the window showed nothing but dark. In the cold, quiet of not yet morning. With the stove ticking and the wind outside doing its steady Wyoming work, the two of them looked at each other. "You're getting ready for me to leave," Odora said. Marin said nothing.
"That's what all of this is." Odora kept her voice level. Not warm, not cold, just direct. The mornings, the laundry, the braiding, the coat buttons. You're rehearsing.
I'm not doing anything different than I did before you came. The girl's voice was controlled. She was very good at controlled. Someone has to manage this house. Someone does, Odora said.
It doesn't have to be you. You might leave. I might. I haven't decided. You will.
Marin said it with a flatness that was not anger. It was something older than anger. It was the particular resignation of someone who has concluded that a pattern is a law rather than a series of events. Everyone does. Odora held that for a moment.
Your father didn't. Something moved across Marin's face at that. Not concession. Something more complicated than concession. Papa doesn't have anywhere to go.
That's not the same thing as choosing to stay. It doesn't matter why. The result is the same. She looked at Odora with eyes that were very like her father's dark and direct when she allowed them to be. You have somewhere to go, a real somewhere.