Page 76 of Bearly Out Loud

Nari didn’t blink. Didn’t hesitate. Picked up her knife and cut into the duck with ruthless focus—she’d survived James Wixx’s interrogation dinners since childhood and was not about to be outmaneuvered by a French-opera-trained mother with a duck agenda.

“Yes to family, and the beekeeping is the most charming thing about your son, which is saying a lot because the bar is high.”

Colette turned to Stellan. Stellan looked up from his carving. They exchanged a glance that contained thirty-five years of marriage and approximately nine thousand wordless conversations.

Colette: “We’re keeping her.”

Stellan returned to the cherry. The ghost of a smile crossed his face, gone before it fully arrived, but Dojin caught it. He’d been tracking his father’s micro-expressions since he was old enough to understand that Stellan Keiser spoke through the spaces between words, and that smile was a standing ovation.

Course six. Cheese plate with fig preserves. Nari told Colette about the izakaya. Colette told Nari about the opera house in Lyon where she’d met Stellan—“He was in the third row. Enormous. Silent. Crying during the second act. I knew immediately.” Stellan: “I had allergies.” Colette: “You hadfeelings.Don’t rewrite the origin story,mon ours.”

Course seven. Dark chocolate mousse with espresso cream. Colette set a plate in front of Nari, then rested her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder for three seconds. Three seconds.The benediction of a mother who had been watching all evening and had arrived at her conclusion.

Stellan set down his carving knife. Brushed the cherry shavings from the counter. Slid a small object across the table to Nari.

A bear. Carved in cherry. Three inches tall, sitting on its haunches, head tilted slightly to the side. The detail was extraordinary—individual hairs in the fur, the texture of the paws, the patient expression. It smelled like the forest after rain.

Nari picked it up. Turned it in her fingers. Ran her thumb over the carved fur with the same care Dojin had given her grandfather’s sketchbooks.

“Kodiak?”

Stellan nodded.

“Beautiful. Thank you.”

Stellan: “For people who matter.”

She put it in the pocket of her dress. Carefully. The way a person pockets a diamond or a house key or a letter from someone who is no longer alive. As though the pocket were a vault and the bear inside it were irreplaceable, because it was, and she understood that without being told, which is how Dojin knew she belonged at this table.

Hana stood to clear the plates. Nari stood with her. Colette tried to object—“Guests don’t—”—and Nari was already in the kitchen, sleeves pushed up, running water over the handmade ceramics. She’d grown up in a household where guests cleared their own plates or answered to Suki Saito, and the instinct was deeper than politeness.

Colette watched from the doorway. Turned to Dojin. Five words, delivered with a satisfaction that could only come from a seven-course strategy performing exactly as rehearsed:

“The duck never lies, darling.”

THIRTY-NINE

DOJIN

The rooftop. After dinner. After the dishes and the espresso and Colette’s goodnight embrace that lasted eight seconds longer than standard and included a whispered “Ne la laisse pas partir” that Nari wasn’t supposed to hear and absolutely did because her hearing was sharp and her French was better than she advertised.

The city spread below them. Spring air, cool enough to bite, carrying the faint sweetness of the hives along the south wall. Manhattan’s lights reflected off the cloud cover in an amber wash that made the rooftop glow. Nari leaned against the railing. Wind caught her hair. She was still holding the carved bear in one hand—hadn’t put it down, hadn’t let it go.

He stood beside her. Not touching. Close enough to touch.

“Your mother whispered ‘don’t let her go’ in French.”

“I assumed you’d hear that.”

“My hearing is exceptional.”

“Your everything is exceptional. Maman noticed.”

She turned the bear over in her fingers. Traced the carved paws. “Your father doesn’t talk much.”

“He never has.”

“But the bear says what he means.”