Page 42 of Infernal Affairs

Zadok grins, showing off a new gold crown on his molar. “He has a crisis, and he doesn’t care for your new hours.”

Daisy is already kneading dough, working it through its second rise. She hums as she works. “Think it’s about the baby?”

“I think it’s about his inability to understand Zelda’s strange cravings,” Zadok says.

I let the conversation pass over me and watch Daisy: the steady rhythm of her hands working the dough, the loose strands of hair escaping her braid, her bare feet dusted in flour. I know, without doubt, she’s happiest like this—making something, sharing it, surrounded by people she trusts not to judge her.

More pounding on the door. This time, a chorus.

Zadok has already anticipated the next guest. “That’ll be Cassian. Or the wind. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

I open the door before the fist can connect again. It’s Cassian and Liza, their dog, Morticia, draped across Cassian’s shoulders. His arms are both full: one holding onto Morticia, the other carrying a brown paper sack already beginning to leak at the bottom.

“Emergency,” he says, deadpan. “The co-op’s out of eggs, and Liza’s got a hankering.”

“That’s not an emergency,” Liza says from behind him, hands tucked into her pockets. “He just needed a reason to leave the house.”

Morticia slides down and sprints for Lenore. The two of them disappear into the entryway, barking and howling.

“Come in,” I say, and they do, tracking cold air and lakeweed in with them. Cassian hands me the sack.

“It’s for you,” he says.

I open it. Inside are three pounds of butter, a mason jar of pickles, and a wedge of cheese labeled EXTREMELY SHARP—MAY BITE BACK. Daisy, at my elbow, makes an approving little noise.

“We’re using the lighthouse as a community refrigerator now?” I ask.

“It’s tradition,” Liza says. “Besides, you’re the only one with reliable refrigeration.”

They settle around the table. The place is too small for so many people, but no one seems to care. Daisy slices the fresh bread, piles it with cheese and slivers of pickle, and passes the pieces around. Cassian and Liza argue about whose turn it is to take Morticia to obedience school, while Morticia and Lenore wolf down their snacks before immediately begging for more. Zadok starts retelling a "haunted" incident from last winter, and even though I was there, I let him embellish. No one tells a story better.

By now the sun has risen, soft orange light spilling through the salt-scarred panes. Daisy is in her element, playing host, streaked with flour like war paint. I stand back, hands in my pockets, trying not to smile too much. It’s an odd, full feeling. Like the lighthouse was always meant for this—wholly, unironically alive, pulsing with voices and the mingled smells of fresh bread and wet dogs.

More knocking.

This time it’s Atlas, who claims to have made too much soup.

“It’s a medical condition,” he explains. “The pots keep getting bigger.”

Zelda trails behind him, windblown and wired, asking for cinnamon in her coffee before she’s even fully inside. I don’t bother pretending annoyance. The lighthouse isn’t mine anymore—not really.

Or maybe, for the first time, it is.

This is what it looks like to belong.

We cram ourselves onto stools and every available surface, eating with spoons, hands, or nothing at all. Atlas ladles out soup. Zelda collects her cinnamon, then stays to taste-test everything else. Daisy shoves another loaf into the oven, cackling at how quickly the last one disappeared.

Zadok tells his story again, this time adding ghosts and a pie-eating contest. Cassian offers Liza the last slice of bread, and she takes it, rolling her eyes fondly at him.

I lose track of the conversations and simply let the noise wash over me. I don’t try to control it. I don’t mediate, analyze, or catalog my own feelings. I don’t brace for disaster.

Instead, I pour coffee for Daisy and let her kiss my cheek on her way to rescue the next batch from burning. She wipes flour across my sleeve and says, “You’re grinning like a maniac.”

“You’re hallucinating,” I tell her, but it’s no use. She has always seen through me.

She drapes her arms around my neck. Her lips are cool from orange juice and warm from laughter.

“You can’t scare me off with domestic bliss, you know.”