“Your what?” she interrupted, feeling grim and triumphant. “What am I, Mercy? Because I’m not your girlfriend, and I’m not your old lady, and I’ve never been anything but someone to look after, an assignment, for you. Don’t think, after last night, that I’m your whore–”
He covered her mouth with his hand, gently but solidly. His eyes fired black. “Stop that.”
She glared at him as he withdrew. “I’ll stop being ‘rude’ to you, when you figure out the answer to that question. Your what, Mercy?” Then she stood and brushed past him, going to join Maggie in the kitchen.
“Can I help?”
Maggie handed her a bag of baking potatoes. “You can scrub these.”
It was a healthy chore, given her mood, scrubbing at the brown skins with a clean brush under the running tap, working out her aggression in short, choppy strokes.
“You’re doing a good job,” Maggie said quietly as she cut a white onion into long, thin slices.
“It’s about the only kitchen chore I can handle.”
“No, I meant-” Maggie tipped her head toward the living room, voice dropping to a low murmur. “He’s old enough and smart enough to know what he needs to do here; he just needs the right push from you.”
She gave her mom a questioning look.
“Make him reach for it,” Maggie said. “He owes you that.”
They were having chicken cooked in a white wine sauce from one of Maggie’s original recipes and the baked potatoes. The dish called for something lighter, a vegetable, Maggie said, but the potatoes were what she had, so that’s what they were eating. The lid had just gone on the skillet of chicken to simmer when the growling of Ghost’s bike reached their ears. Ava heard Mercy get up from the couch, the old frame creaking as his weight lifted.
She stiffened without wanting to when he came into the kitchen to trash his beer bottle. She kept her gaze fixed on the potatoes as she pried each one open with knife and fork and loaded the steaming innards with big dollops of softened butter.
“I’ll see you ladies tomorrow,” he said, gathering his jacket off the rack by the door. “Thanks for the beer, Mags.”
Ava felt her cheeks warm when he leaned over and kissed her on top of the head, a silent farewell.
Maggie smiled to herself.
Ava felt something like panic as Ghost entered. It was like that morning, by her truck, Ghost and Mercy together, with her there. She didn’t begin to know where club politics ended and fatherhood began in this situation.
“Hey, you’re leaving?” Ghost asked as Mercy shrugged into his jacket and cut.
There was a careful note to Mercy’s voice, a caution afforded for dual reasons. “Thought I would. Since you’re home.”
“Stay for dinner,” Ghost said. He clapped Mercy on the shoulder and smiled a cold, not-at-all friendly smile. “Mags always makes plenty.”
“Oh, God,” Ava whispered. She screwed her eyes shut tight, hoping that when she opened them again, this would all be gone, a dispelled hallucination.
“What’s wrong?” Ghost asked.
“Nothing,” Maggie answered for her. “She’s just starving is all. You boys go wash up. No dirty hands at my dinner table.” She shooed them away with a clap of her hands and began laying out the place settings.
“Mom,” Ava said when they were gone, turning helplessly to her mother, butter knife clenched so tight in her hand she thought she might bend the stainless steel. “Why is he doing this?”
Maggie sighed and shook her bangs out of her eyes as she folded napkins into neat triangles and wedged them under forks. “This is between them. This is the dick-measuring part of it. Just keep your head down and suffer through it.” When she glanced up, her gaze was warm and reassuring. “This would happen no matter who you picked. Be glad Merc is strong enough to butt heads with him, instead of running away.”
“But I didn’t pick him!” Ava protested. “I didn’t…I just…this is all so terrible.”
“Hush,” Maggie said, as if talking to a child. “Bring the potatoes over and stop worrying.”
Numbly, she transferred the food to serving plates and carried them to the table one at a time, bringing big spoons for the chicken and tongs for the potatoes, the covered basket of dinner rolls and the butter on its glass plate.
If this went well – and she couldn’t imagine that – then what? Then Mercy got the stamp of approval and they were just together? She may have loved him – he may have even said he loved her – but she wasn’t ready to trust and forgive him yet. The pain was too old and deep to have mended so quickly.
She heard their voices coming down the hall from the bathroom and a fine sweat broke out all down her back, gluing her shirt to her skin, heating her all over until she was breathing irregularly.
