Chapter 28: Morning Pie

Mara's POV

I woke up in my father's cot under a plaid blanket that smelled of a man, with coffee coming up the stairs.

For a second I thought I was twelve and it was inventory.

Then I saw the dent in the pillow beside me, and the whole night came back.

The other half of the cot was empty and still warm.

"Cain?"

"Down here."

I found my sweater on the counter, above eleven pages of draft contract strewn across the floor, and went down the back stairs in it.

Cain stood by the register in his undershirt and last night's trousers, holding a white box with both hands.

The tie was gone.

Two buttons were gone from the shirt folded on the stool, and I felt a small private pride.

"Gus brought breakfast," he said.

"Gus is here?"

"Gus has been here all night."

"Did he sleep?"

"He says he napped in intervals."

Through the glass I could see the black car, and Gus behind the wheel with a thermos, looking at the sky.

Cain opened the box.

It was a peach pie, warm, with a lattice top.

The baker on Eastern Avenue opens at six, and apparently Gus had been at the door at five fifty-nine.

"I would like to eat this with you," Cain said. "And then I would like to say something about last night."

"Pie first."

"Pie first," he agreed.

We sat on two nail kegs at the counter and ate it out of the box with the same fork, taking turns.

It was the best pie I'd ever had, and I told him so with my mouth full.

He wrote nothing down.

He just watched me eat, and looked pleased with himself.

Then the bell rang.

June came in stamping snow off her boots with a bag of bagels, and stopped.

She looked at Cain.

She looked at his undershirt.

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