In the morning he sat on the edge of the bed, watching the steam from his coffee spread and fade in the sunlight, and when she put the eggs before him he looked up at her. His mouth quivered. She stood before him, waiting.
At last he said, ‘Have you had your breakfast yet?’
Something was kindled in her eyes. She shook her head.
He looked down at the plate, puzzling something out. Finally he pushed it away from him a fraction of an inch and stood up. ‘You have this,’ he said. ‘I’ll fix some more.’
He had seen her smile but he had not noticed it before. Now, it was as if the warmth of all of them was put together for this one. She sat down and ate. He fried his eggs, not as well as she had done, and they were cooked before he thought of toast and the toast burned while he was eating the eggs. She did not attempt to help him in any way, even when he stared blankly at the little table, frowned and scratched his jaw. In his own time he found what he was looking for—the other cup on top of the dresser. He poured fresh coffee for her and took the other which she had not touched, for himself, and she smiled again.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked her, for the very first time.
‘Janie Gerard.’
‘Oh.’
She considered him carefully, then stretched down to the footpost of the bed where her handbag hung by its strap. She drew it towards her, opened it, and took out a short piece of metal. At first glance, it was a piece of aluminium tubing, perhaps eight inches long and oval in cross-section. But it was flexible—woven of tiny strands rather than extruded. She turned his right hand palm up, where it lay beside his coffee cup, and put the tubing into it.
He must have seen it for he was staring down into the cup. He did not close his fingers on it. His expression did not change. At length he took a slice of toast. The piece of tubing fell, rolled over, hung on the edge of the table and dropped to the floor. He buttered his toast.