Chapter 16: The Quiet Place

"You don't get to decide that," I said.

Chan's jaw worked.

"Mara."

"I've been in it since I turned off the lights in the Rusty Buoy.

"You can't have me out of it. You can only have me in it without being told."

Nobody said anything.

The broken teapot lay on the floor between us.

Hyunjin put his wet feet on the boards and stared at the pieces.

"I'll sweep," he said.

"I'll sweep," Chan said.

"Neither of you will," I said. "Sit down. Both of you. I'm making dinner, and nobody leaves the kitchen till it's eaten."

It was the first rule I had made since the flyer.

They sat.

I made the only thing I could make for three people in a hurry.

It was eggs and potatoes and the last of the sausage.

Hyunjin peeled. Chan chopped.

Nobody talked, and the stove ticked, and by the time the plates were down the room had stopped feeling like a fight.

We ate on the floor in front of the woodstove, because the table seemed too much like a negotiation.

I opened the bottle of rye that I keep for funerals.

"What are we celebrating?" Hyunjin asked.

"We're not. It's for the truth part."

"What truth part?"

"Chan won a game of pool and asked what I wanted. I told him.

"Now it's the other way. I ask, and you tell the truth. No hoods. No translating."

Chan looked at his glass.

"All right," he said. "You first."

"I'm the one asking."

"You asked in a bar and told us everything.

"We still don't know why you won't be kissed in a doorway.

"You said it twice. We can wait, but I'd like to know."

I looked at the fire.

They sat on either side of me, one with a knee almost against mine, the other with his shoulder to the stove.

It was warm, and nobody was going anywhere.

I took off my glasses and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

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