Page 87 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

"Hop on Pop, Frog and Toad, Go, Dog. Go. Tonight's looking like a five-book night and Jessica's the boss."

It took me a moment to catch what he meant, and my laugh came late. He took my coat. The hallway had dark wide-plank floors and Jessica's small pink jacket on a peg three feet off the ground and a drawing on the wall at adult eye level: a green house, a blue cloud, a yellow person who took up about a third of the page, labeled DAD in shaky uppercase letters.

It was in a frame that looked like it cost about five hundred dollars.

He left me in a sitting room at the back. The tall windows offered a view over a stone terrace and pasture, and a fire was lit in a fieldstone fireplace. A pile of children's books on a low table. There was a sketch of a horse on the side table, signed Jessica. The room smelled like garlic and lemon.

Pamela had told me about this room four and a half years ago, in clinic, between scans. The back room had the pasture view, and they had put the couches there because Derek hated the formal room. This one was warmer, smaller, and more lived-in than the one I had pictured in my head.

The kitchen was lit by a row of pendant lights over a long island. A woman in her forties was standing at the open oven holding two oven mitts and a paring knife at the same time, which was not the right combination of tools for any situation.

"Hi," I said, walking to the kitchen.

"Oh. Hi. I'm Marissa. He said to watch the fish for fifteen minutes. It's been twenty. I am not going to be the person who ruined it. Are you a cook?"

"I cook a little—" I started.

"Thank God." She snatched the words she wanted to hear and started to hand me the mitts.

I looked in the oven. Whole fish butterflied open, charred at the fins and the flesh still wet at the thickest part, catching the oven light.

"Lacey," a voice said behind me.

He had not shaved. His shirt was damp in a pattern that looked like a wriggling four-year-old who had just had a bath. He was holding a paperback copy of Hop on Pop.

His sleeves were pushed up, showing ink on his forearms: a column of dates on the left, and a dagger wrapped in binary on the right, with DE OPPRESSO LIBER above it.

"Five books," he said.

"Aaron warned me."

"Derek, you're late, it's probably burning," Marissa said.

Derek took the mitts. "It'll be fine, Marissa, thank you. I've got it from here."

"I'm not a cook," she tossed to him as she went out a side door. The kitchen went quiet.

Derek came around the island. He smelled like soap and the spice he had put in the rice.

"You're actually the one cooking?" I asked.

"Yeah, shocking, I know, but I'm not bad at it." And just then he reached for a cast-iron pan handle to move it off the heat. "Shit," he said, pulling his hand back and looking at the heel of his palm.

"Every time," he laughed.

"Run it under cold water."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. Run it under water."

He looked at me with something close to amusement, then went to the sink. He ran his hand under cold water for thirty seconds and shook his hand dry.

"For the record," he said, "I have a low pain tolerance."

"I thought you were Special Forces or something."

"The Army tested for many things. Pain tolerance was not on the list. The Army's official position was: acceptable in the field, regrettable in the kitchen." He laughed again. "Pamela found it deeply funny. She made an oven mitt with my name embroidered on it. It says HOT THING in capital letters. I still have it."