I watched her come.
I watched her come once through the doorway and once in a chair six feet from her bed. I sat in that chair with my hands flat on the arms of it, which was the only thing I had left, because if my hands had gone anywhere else they would have been on her. I sat and I looked at her and I saidyesonce and I saidkeep goingand I saidstay lookingand I watched a woman I have known for four days come on her own hand with her eyes on mine.
Her eyes on mine.
That is the part I can't put down.
I break the yolks with the corner of the spatula. I don't mean to. I always fry them over easy. I break them this morning because my hand is not where my head is. I let them break. I let them set flat in the pan. I salt them. I pepper them.
Her footsteps in the hallway.
I hear her come before I see her. Bare feet on the boards. Then slower, on the transition strip at the door of the kitchen. She has put something on. I hear a shirt move. I do not turn yet.
"Sit," I say.
"Okay."
She crosses behind me. I hear her pull out the chair across the table from where I'll sit. I hear her settle.
I turn.
She is in the gray henley. Mine. She has not put anything else on. The hem falls to her thigh. Her hair is loose. Her face is pink at the cheek. Her mouth still has the shape a mouth has just after. Her hands are folded on the table in front of her. She has put her hands on the table on purpose, I see, because her hands would be doing other things without a job to do.
I cross to the table. I set the plate down in front of her. Eggs, toast, butter in a small crock. I set her coffee to the right of the plate. I set my plate and my coffee across from her. I sit.
She looks at me.
"Thank you," she says.
"You're welcome."
"For the eggs."
"The eggs."
"And the sitting."
"The sitting."
"Yes."
I pick up my fork. I watch her pick up her fork. Her hand shakes a very small amount. I don't say anything about it. She butters her toast. She takes a bite of toast first and then a bite of egg. Her eyes close a half second on the first bite.
"Good," she says.
"Good."
We eat.
I watch her eat the way I watched her eat last night, but differently. Last night I watched her and the watching was a thing I was doing with a wall around it. This morning the wall is gone. I watch her jaw work. I watch her throat swallow. I watch the pulse in the side of her neck. I watch her lift the mug. I watch the small pink mark in the white of her teeth where she must have bitten her lower lip during.
"Stop watching me," she says.
"No."
"Max."
"No."
