Page 44 of Thin Ice

"She's not expecting two." He was already scanning the corner. "Go. This is your time."

Hannah opened the door, wearing jeans and a sweater. She had reading glasses pushed up in her hair and looked past me at Elias's back going down the steps.

"He's not staying?"

"He's working."

"Hm." She held the door. "Good bones."

Her kitchen smelled of caramelized onions. There was a pot on the stove and a stack of journals on the far end of the table. Her boyfriend, Paul, was in Chicago for three days. She put food in front of me without asking whether I'd eaten. She knew I got meals delivered and had opinions about eating from trays.

She didn't mention the Cup Final. Anyone else in the city would have led with it and told me we'd get them at home. Hannah asked whether I'd noticed the new awning on the coffee place on Maryland, and whether it was as ugly as she thought it was. She was right.

She took a bottle of bourbon down when the plates were cleared. It lived on the top shelf and came down maybe twice a year. She never announced the reason why.

She poured two glasses, one finger each, and slid mine over.

I turned the glass a quarter turn.

"My building's a circus," I said. "There's a satellite truck out front and a kid holding a boom mic, hoping I'll come out the front door."

"I saw that."

"The League's got people everywhere. Security guys were bumping into each other on our floor in the hotel in Boston."

"Mm."

I turned the glass back the other way. She let the silence sit. She never fills it when she wants to know something. It works on me every time.

"There's someone," I said.

She sipped her bourbon.

"It's new." I looked at my glass. "It's—there's no version of it that's simple. The timing's wrong and the situation's wrong; it's—" I let the sentence die.

She set her glass down. "You've been here an hour and you've checked my window twice. Tell me."

"I'm scared."

She looked at me for a moment. Then she reached over, took my glass, and poured a second finger. I couldn't remember the last time that happened.

"Being scared of a good thing isn't unusual."

"It's not that simple. There are things about this you don't—"

"Of course there are." She didn't argue. "I'm not saying it's simple. I'm saying scared isn't a reason to do anything. I hear you on the edge of treating it like a reason." She sat back with her own glass. "You get scared when something can be taken from you. That's all it is."

I didn't want to discuss it, and she understood. She told me about her week instead.

"A family fired me today," she said. "Not fired. You can't fire me, but the son stood in the hall and told me I didn't care about his mother. It was in front of two residents. He did it because I wouldn't promise him something I can't promise anybody." She sipped her bourbon again. "He's not wrong that I wouldn't promise it. He was wrong about it being something I could promise. I don't get to argue. I have to stand there and let a scared man tell me what he thinks I am."

"What'd you do?"

"Excused myself to see my next patient." She shrugged. "That's the job. Somebody decides you're a villain, and you go do the next right thing anyway." She set the glass down. "Then I came home, turned my phone off, and made too much food for one person. You can use that for your diagnosis."

I almost said something. She saw it coming and headed it off.

"Don't. I like cooking. I'm allowed to like cooking." She pointed at me. "You, on the other hand, ate whatever came in a tray tonight, or you would have, if I'd let you."