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As though he hadn’t dropped a bombshell before retreating to the bathroom, he thanked her for the plate of food she set down on the table in front of him. As he tucked in, she motioned toward a plate stacked with slices of toast. “The toaster works better. It popped them up.”
“Good. The repair saved me from having to buy a new one.”
Performing ordinary tasks like making toast and placing the stick of butter on a dish had given her a self-delusional sense of control over her situation. She knew he noticed the dish as he knifed a pat of butter and spread it over his toast. He acknowledged it with a glance toward her but didn’t comment.
Halfway through the meal, he asked if she wanted another cup of coffee.
“If you’re getting up, please.”
He came back to the table with their refills, then sat down, straddling the seat of his chair in the way of a man. Any man. A normal, nonviolent man. A man who hadn’t shot out the TV of his redneck neighbors at dawn.
No longer able to hold back the question, she blurted, “My picture was on TV?”
“I saw it on our way out. That’s why I had to go back inside and take care of it.”
“Were they saying—”
“I don’t know what they were saying. The audio was muted.” He took a sip of coffee, watching her through the steam rising out of the cup. “But in big yellow letters across the bottom of the screen was a notice of a reward. Twenty-five thousand.”
“Who put up the reward? Jeff?”
He shrugged. “But I couldn’t let the Floyd brothers see that. God knows what they’d have done in order to claim the reward.”
“Why didn’t you explain this to me right away? Why did you let me go on the way I did?”
He leaned back in his chair. “I wanted to learn what you really think of me. Now I know. You have a very low opinion.”
“That’s not true.”
He made a scoffing sound.
“Well, can you blame me? Pauline, who only met you last night, conjectured that you?
?re a fugitive.”
“She tell you that?”
“Lisa did.”
“That seems to be the consensus among them. Norman bragged about his lawbreaking and urged me to swap stories with him.”
“What did you tell them?”
He didn’t answer.
“Nothing,” she said, guessing but knowing she was correct.
He asked, “Lisa tell you anything else?”
She related the context of their conversation about him. He didn’t comment on the girl believing him to be an outlaw over a wife deserter, nor did he say anything in response to her qualifying him as a man who wouldn’t expect sexual favors in exchange for kindness.
“She holds you in high esteem,” Emory said. “But you remain a puzzle to her. She asked me what I made of you.”
He waited, unmoving and expressionless.
“I’ll tell you what I told Lisa. I don’t know what to make of you.”
He kept his level gaze on her a few moments longer, then got up and carried his empty dishes to the sink. They worked side by side to clean the kitchen. It was amazing to her that, given the events of the last twelve hours, the scene they were now enacting was so commonplace. They could be any couple anywhere, going about a morning routine.
