Page 110 of The Final Cut

“You do that.”

“I know. This is reparations.”

She studies him for a long second. “You’re the funny one.”

He presses a hand to his chest. “I prefer emotionally vital.”

Delia looks at me. “Is he always like this?”

I shrug. “He’s worse when he’s wounded.”

“I’m rarely wounded,” Shiloh says.

Deacon sits at the end of the table with the stiff care of a man pretending his side does not hurt. “You’re often wounded. Usually in pride.”

Shiloh points at him. “You are supposed to be resting.”

“So are you.”

“Eh. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“Oh, no. We aren’t saying that around here,” I cut in.

Delia watches the exchange without moving, but some of the rigidity has eased from her shoulders. I think it’ll take a while to go completely away…to heal or to be forgotten…but still, she’s here. Sitting at a table with us while bacon pops in the pan and Ever quietly watches his egg water.

Thank God.

Nash pours himself the new coffee after I give him a suspicious look and he survives the first sip. That seems to approve the pot. I pour another mug and set it near Delia, this time with less cream.

She eyes it. “Better?”

“I had adult supervision.”

She takes a sip. Nods once. I feel as if I have been awarded a medal.

Breakfast comes together in pieces. Bacon crisp enough for me, eggs scrambled for everyone except Delia because Ever is a stubborn man and poaches hers with grim competence, strawberries sliced because Shiloh found a knife and needed to feel useful, muffins unwrapped from the hospital bag and arranged on a plate like we are normal people with normal mornings.

Nobody says the word Isabel.

Nobody asks what happens next.

The question sits at the table with us anyway.

I eat because Nash looks at me until I do. Delia eats slowly, cautious at first, then with the focus of someone who did not realize she was hungry until food was in front of her. Homer remains in her lap until she gives him a tiny piece of bacon, at which point he becomes hers forever, and I realize there’s probably nothing I wouldn’t do to have my sister back. Even let my cat like her more than he does me.

When the plates are half-cleared and the room has settled into something quieter, Delia reaches for her coffee again.

Her bandaged fingers curl around the mug.

“I…um…I guess I can tell you things,” she says.

Everyone stops pretending not to wait.

My fork pauses halfway to the plate. I set it down carefully.

Delia keeps her eyes on the coffee. “Not everything.”

“Okay.”