Her eyes sharpen.
“Do you more than like him?”
The kitchen window offers an easy place to put my eyes while I avoid hers. The narrow strip of garden, the plastic slide, the washing line turning gently in the wind.
“I've known him for two days.”
“Again,” she says, “not what I asked.”
I press my lips together.
When I finally turn back, she is still watching me.
My sister has always been able to do that. Sit across from me and wait until I run out of places to hide.
“He felt important,” I say at last.
The words sound absurdly small for something that has managed to take up this much space inside me.
Sophie nods once, like that is an answer she understands.
“What’s he like?”
I think of Mark in his kitchen. Mark with Heath tucked safely against his chest. Mark saying better than nothing in that infuriatingly calm voice.
“He’s calm,” I say. “But not detached. He notices things. He listens properly.”
Sophie gives me a faint look.
“You are aware most people think they listen properly.”
“He does.”
“How?”
My fingers tighten slightly around the mug.
“When he looks at you, it feels like he wants the real answer. Not the easy one.”
Something flickers across her face.
Recognition.
Longing.
Maybe both.
From the living room, Matty laughs loudly at something on the game. He still hasn’t come into the kitchen. Hasn’t asked if Sophie needs anything. Hasn’t noticed one child is now running past the doorway in a superhero cape made from what looks suspiciously like a fitted sheet.
Sophie hears it too.
Her mouth tightens, then smooths.
“He sounds like a good man,” she says.
“He is.”
Immediate.
