Page 76 of The Final Cut

Sabine swallows. The motion is small. Human. Then she nods.

“People remember the mother’s line,” she says. “Even if Isabel spent fifteen years teaching them to remember it her way.”

That line lodges in my mind. Mother’s line.

Reva does not know enough about that yet. None of us do, perhaps not even Deacon. The gaps around her mother remain too clean, too deliberate. I don’t like those kinds of holes. They usually have bodies in them.

I fold the paper once and tuck it inside my jacket. “Your brother leaves tonight.”

Sabine exhales through her nose. “Then I will confirm the luncheon route by noon tomorrow.”

“Use the old signal?” Deacon asks.

Her mouth softens for a fraction of a second. “If I use the old signal, you will come alone and do something stupid.”

He does not deny it, but we know that’s not true anymore.

She looks at me. “I will send through Blackwood. He looks less likely to confuse martyrdom with romance.”

“I’ll be waiting,” I say.

Deacon’s eyes cut to me.

Sabine almost smiles again. “Good.”

A sound comes from the alley mouth. Tiny. Metal against brick. All three of us move.

Deacon’s gun appears in his hand. Mine follows. Sabine steps backward into the deepest part of the awning shadow, one hand under the hem of her blouse where she carries a blade or a compact pistol. The alley holds its breath.

A cat slips from behind a trash bin, gray and thin, offended by our suspicion.

It darts across the courtyard and vanishes under the gate.

For one ridiculous second, I think of Homer.

Reva’s cat has probably colonized the cabin by now and found some new surface to defile. Reva will pretend not to love him for it. She will pretend not to love all of us for the things we do badly in her name.

Sabine lowers her hand. “This meeting is done.”

Deacon hesitates. “Sabine.”

“No.” Her voice sharpens. “Do not make this sentimental because you need me to forgive you before you burn down the rest of your life.”

The words land between them with history attached. Deacon stands very still, then gives a single clipped nod.

I understand then that she did love him, in whatever way a woman can love a man who belongs to violence before he belongs to himself. I also understand that she is smart enough to know he has no part of himself left to give her.

Reva has it. I think Sabine might know that, too.

She steps past him, then pauses at the mouth of the alley. “Delia is stronger than Isabel thinks.”

“She is,” Deacon says.

“So is the other one?”

My answer comes before Deacon’s. “Stronger.”

Sabine looks back at me. I don’t soften it with a smile.