Page 31 of Rhodes

"So how does that translate to me somehow becoming whatever it is you're accusing me of?" I lean back against the counter and cross my arms.

"Be honest. What did he ask of you? Don't bullshit me, Rhodes."

"He literally said that he didn't want you to live alone. That's it. He didn't ask me to do anything, including opening my spare bedroom. I offered because I have one and you needed a place until the fall. That’s it."

"That's not it."

"I don't know what else I can say to you, Tallulah, besides that's it." I hold her eyes. "Being around isn't the same thing as running your life. I don't want to decide where you go. I don't care who you have lunch with or whether you can change your own starter, which, clearly, you had covered."

A corner of her mouth moves at that. She studies me, letting it sink in, and I can see some of the fight drain out of her.

She comes over beside me to reach the faucet. Her arm slides along mine at the wrist. She doesn't pull back, and I don’t move. I stand there with my hips squared at the cabinet doors, scrubbing a pot that's been clean for a minute.

Her forearm is wet from the tap. When it brushes against mine, my whole arm goes stupid from the elbow down.

"I noticed you got rid of the beer,” she says, snapping me out of it.

The shelf on the door is empty. Bare wire where the bottles used to stand.

I see what she's doing. Instead of arguing with me anymore, she's pointing out the signs that I'm doing what she's accusing me of. She should be a prosecutor.

"Yeah." Easy. I pick up the towel and dry my already dry hands. "I moved them to my belly."

I leave out that after I finished them, I never bought more, or that I stood in the beer aisle last weekend and picked up a six-pack of an IPA, and then put it back.

I get there before her mouth does.

"Turns out I drink like a college kid when nobody's counting," I say, and toss the towel back over my shoulder. "So, who's watching who, huh?"

The corners of her eyes crease. She lets me have it, screws the cap on her water, and doesn't say the thing.

I lift the lid off the pot. The steam rolls up, and the rice has gone soft, the top darkening where the andouille cooked down. I transfer it to a large bowl, put the pot in the sink to soak, and open the cabinet.

"You eating? Made enough jambalaya for a boat crew."

A second passes. "It does smell really good."

"It's better than good." I set my bowl on the counter and grab a serving spoon. "Help yourself. Or don't, whatever."

My hand's already reaching for a second bowl before I catch it. I put the bowl back on the shelf. That's the whole thing we just went ten rounds over. So I close the cabinet without getting one down for her.

"I'm eating on the back deck." I tip my head at the door. "Got a fire going on the porch, if you want to join. No hard feelings if not."

I fill a glass with ice and then water at the purified jug, leave the pot to soak, and take my supper and my water out through the French doors before she can work out whether that was an invitation or me telling her where I'll be. I don't wait in the doorway or look back to see what she does with it, closing the door and sitting down by the fire.

The fire's burned down to the good part, low and orange in the brick box I had added when I renovated the summer before my Freshman year. I set the bowl on my knee and eat and watch it work, the heat coming off it in a small circle and the February cold leaning in on everything past the edge of it.

The door opens behind me, Tallulah coming out with a bowl in hand. She doesn't say a word about coming out, and I don't comment, either.

We eat without talking much, the fire ticking, the bugs keeping up their racket in the grass past the rail. When her bowl's empty, she sets it on the side table beside her chair and pulls her legs up under her. Her chin rests on her knee as she stares into the fire.

"Mama would've hated how you handled that," she says.

I look over.

"The whole thing in there with that calm voice." A ghost of a smile. "She'd have told you to say the mean part out loud so we could get to the end faster. She never let anybody circle."

"No," I say. "She didn't."