"You heard me get up," she said.
"I always hear you get up."
"That's either attentive or unsettling."
"Both.Eat your toast."
She sat down and picked up the coffee first.Through the kitchen window, the inlet caught the early light, flat and bright, and a pelican cruised low over the water with its wings nearly touching the surface.
"Diana wants me to do press," she said.
"She called me at six."
"She called you."
"She wanted to know if it was operationally safe for you to go public.I told her that was your decision, not mine."
Harper looked at him.He was watching the laptop screen, reading something, but the set of his shoulders told her he was paying more attention to this conversation than he was pretending.
"That's growth," she said.
"I have my moments."
She bit into the toast.It was good.Butter and a thin layer of orange marmalade from a jar she'd seen in the back of his cabinet.She hadn't known he owned marmalade.There were still things about this man she was discovering, small domestic details that didn't square with the operational precision she'd come to expect.
"I'm going to do it," she said."The press.If they want to talk, I'll talk."
He nodded without looking up."When?"
"After Graham's briefing.I want to know what's coming next before I put myself in front of a camera."
"Smart."
"Don't sound surprised."
"I'm not surprised.I'm agreeing with you.There's a difference."
"The difference is about three degrees of condescension."
He did look up then, and the expression on his face was so close to offended that she almost laughed.Almost.She bit the inside of her cheek and went back to her toast.
She calledher mother at nine.
She'd been putting it off for three days.Three days of knowing her mother had seen the story, had read her daughter's name in a national publication for the first time in over a year, had learned from a byline that Harper was alive and had been hiding and was now, apparently, investigating something dangerous enough to warrant all those months of silence.
The phone rang twice.
"Harper Marie."Her mother's voice was steady.Too steady.The kind of steadiness that came from three days of rehearsing what to say.
"Hi, Mom."
"I read your story.I read it three times, actually.The first time, because I couldn't believe it was you.The second time, because I wanted to understand what you'd been doing.The third time because I needed to figure out how angry I was."
"And?"
"Very.Very angry, Harper."
"I know."
