I take in a long breath and let it out slowly. I flip the steaks over and check the sear for a moment, but when I glance back at Seri, she’s staring at me, still waiting for a better answer.
“I was a preemie,” I tell her. “Born about six weeks early. I had to be in an incubator and on oxygen and such. I was in pretty bad shape for a while, and the doctors weren’t sure if I was going to make it. My mother is a devout Catholic, and she prayed over me all the time. One day, someone from the Catholic Church stopped by and prayed with her, and I started improving the next day. When I was finally doing well, she named me ‘Bishop’ because she couldn’t remember the actual bishop’s first name.”
“That’s a nice story,” she says. “I’m kind of surprised you weren’t named before that though. Don’t babies get named right after they’re born?”
“I was,” I tell her. I poke at the steaks in the pan—they’re almost done. “Originally, I was named after my father. Thankfully, they changed it before I left the hospital.”
“What did your father think of that?”
“I don’t give a fuck what he thought.” I pull the pan from the fire and walk over to the kitchen, placing the hot pan on a folded towel on the counter. Without another word, I stalk to the bathroom and slam the door behind me.
This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. I know all the seemingly innocuous questions that come next, and I’m not prepared for any of them—I never have been. Are your parents still alive? Where is your mother now? Why don’t you speak to her? What happened to your father? These are all questions I can’t answer without saying far, far too much. When no answer is forthcoming, people become suspicious, and that stirs their natural curiosity. If they decide to investigate, they find out more than I want them to.
“I know what happened, Bishop.”
I stared at Margot with narrowed eyes.
“Well, you wouldn’t tell me anything, so I looked you up. I found a couple of articles in the Courier-Journal.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she promised. “I think I know you well enough to know you aren’t a violent person. You had to have a pretty compelling reason to do what you did.”
“You don’t know shit.”
Solo meows and scratches at the door. The sound pulls me from thoughts, but I don’t respond to him right away. I’m pissed that I’ve shut my own bathroom door for the first time ever. I’m pissed that there’s someone else in my house. I hate her questions. I hate her presence. My stomach is tied up in knots, and my hands are shaking.
Get a fucking grip.
Solo is howling at the door now. I didn’t realize the tiny thing could get so loud. I take several deep breaths, splash ice-cold water on my face, and open the door to face a very angry kitten. He immediately starts climbing up my leg, and when I reach down and bring him up to my chest, he stares me straight in the eye and howls again.
“Shut it,” I mumble. Solo makes his way onto my shoulder and sits there as I go back to the kitchen and put the steaks on two plates. I hand one to Seri as I walk by and sit down slowly enough for Solo to keep his balance.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Seri says.
“You didn’t.” My lie is transparent, and she raises an eyebrow at me.
“Well, I’m sorry anyway. I didn’t intend to pry.”
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I shrug and dig into the meat. Seri blesses me with a brief amount of quiet as she finishes her food and slowly stands to take her dishes to the sink.
“You just heat water for the sink in this pot, right?” She holds up the percolator, and I nod. She fills it and takes it to the fire, examining the hook for a moment before hanging the pot. When it boils, she removes it by the insulated handle and pours the hot water into the sink.
“That seems to work,” she says. I assume she’s talking to herself, so I don’t answer. She walks back to me and holds out her hand until I hand her my plate and silverware.
Seri finishes the dishes while I feed Solo.
When the kitten is done with the milk, he licks my fingers free of meat juice. When my fingers are clean, he keeps licking.
“You’ve already got it all,” I say softly. He doesn’t seem to care.
I hear clanking from the kitchen as Seri puts the clean dishes away. I look at her sideways and see her wiping her hands on a towel and staring out the window at the snow coming down.
Turning my attention back to Solo, I disengage my fingers from his tongue and place him down near the fire. He yawns and stretches before curling up in a ball and then begins to clean his paws and face.
I wonder how he even knows to do that, given the loss of his mother. He looks so small and helpless, but he has instincts. They got him to a place where there was someone to look after him and keep him warm. Everything else he seems to know how to do on his own.