Chapter 53

It happened in small pieces.

Not all at once – not a revelation, not a moment where everything became clear. Just small things, one after another, building a picture that was different from the one Freen had built over two months of surveillance and professional observation.

That picture had been accurate.

This one was realer.

—

The cooking happened on a Wednesday.

Freen had offered. She wasn’t sure why – some impulse toward normalcy, toward being a person who did ordinary things in an ordinary way. Becky had looked at her with the expression she used when she was deciding whether to say what she was thinking.

“You said you can’t cook,” Becky said.

“I said I don’t cook,” Freen said. “Those are different things.”

“Are they.”

“I can follow instructions.”

“A recipe is instructions,” Becky said. “You follow instructions well.”

“Yes.”

“Then cook,” Becky said. She sat at the kitchen counter. “I’ll watch.”

Freen looked at the kitchen. At the ingredients she had bought on the way over – simple things, nothing ambitious. She had looked up the recipe three times on her phone and felt this was adequate preparation.

It was not adequate preparation.

Twenty minutes in she looked at the pan and looked at Becky and said: “This is not what the recipe described.”

Becky looked at the pan. “No,” she agreed. “It isn’t.”

“It looked different in the photograph.”

“Food always looks different in the photograph.”

“That seems like important information that should be disclosed upfront.”

Becky got off the counter. She came and stood beside Freen and looked at the pan.

“Move,” she said.

“I have it.”

“You don’t have it.” She gently took the spoon. “Move.”

Freen moved.

She leaned against the counter and watched Becky work. Quick, efficient, adjusting things without appearing to think about it. The same quality she brought to the closing argument and the courtroom and everything else she did.

“You can cook,” Freen said.

“I can cook three things well,” Becky said. “This is one of them.”

“What are the other two.”

“You’ll find out eventually.” She tasted something from the spoon. Added something. Tasted again. “Get the plates.”

Freen got the plates.

They ate at the kitchen counter – not the table, just the counter, because neither of them had moved toward the table and the counter was where they already were. The food was good. Significantly better than what Freen had been producing.

“You fixed it,” Freen said.

“I adjusted it,” Becky said.

“What’s the difference.”

“Fixing implies it was broken. It just needed adjusting.” She looked at Freen. “Like most things.”

Freen looked at her plate.

“Is that a metaphor,” she said.

“It’s about the food,” Becky said.

“Is it.”

Becky looked at her. Then she looked back at her plate. “Eat,” she said.

Freen ate.

—

The dogs happened on a Saturday.

They were walking – the easy kind of walking that had become part of their Saturdays, no destination, just the city and the morning. They turned a corner and a woman was coming toward them with two large dogs on leads – both of them pulling, both of them enthusiastic about everything they were encountering on this particular stretch of pavement.

Becky stopped.

She didn’t say anything. She just stopped and shifted slightly so that Freen was between her and the dogs.

Freen looked at her.

Then at the dogs. Then back at Becky.

She said nothing. She stayed exactly where she was until the dogs and their owner had passed and the pavement was clear again and Becky had resumed walking at the same pace as if nothing had happened.

“You’re afraid of dogs,” Freen said.

“I’m not afraid of dogs,” Becky said. “I’m cautious of large dogs.”

“You moved behind me.”

“I moved to give them more space.”

“You moved behind me,” Freen said. “Specifically.”

Becky looked at the street ahead. “They were very large.”

“They were labradors.”

“Large labradors.”

Freen looked at her profile. “Rebecca Armstrong. Senior counsel. Eight months prosecuting the most dangerous arms network in Thailand. Afraid of labradors.”

“Cautious,” Becky said. “Of large ones.”

“They were pulling toward you because they wanted to say hello.”

“They were pulling toward me because they were large and undiscriminating.”

“That’s what friendly means.”

“That’s what large and undiscriminating means.” Becky kept walking. “Don’t tell Irin.”

“I’m absolutely telling Irin,” Freen said.

“Freen.”

“She’ll find it very reassuring. You’re human after all.”

“I’m completely human.” Becky looked at her. “I have range.”

“You have range,” Freen agreed. “The range includes large labradors.”

Becky pressed her lips together. “Are you going to do this every time we pass a dog.”

“Probably,” Freen said.

“Wonderful,” Becky said.

She kept walking. Freen kept pace beside her and did not say anything else about the dogs for approximately four minutes.

Then: “They were very soft looking.”

“Freen.”

“The one on the left especially.”

“I will leave you on this pavement.”

“You won’t.”

Becky looked at her.

Freen looked back.

Becky looked away first but she was almost smiling and Freen noted this and filed it in the collection she was building – the one that was different from the operational collection, the one that had no purpose except being there.

—

The sleep talking happened on a Thursday.

Freen woke at three – she usually did, the particular light sleeping of someone whose body had learned not to fully let go. She lay in the dark and listened to the city and was about to get up when Becky said something.

Freen went still.

“The foundation,” Becky said clearly. “The foundation has to hold.”

Silence.

Freen looked at the ceiling.

“The whole chain,” Becky said. A pause. “Yes. Obviously.”

She was arguing with someone. In complete, well-constructed sentences. At three in the morning.

Freen turned her head to look at her.

Completely asleep. Eyes closed. The relaxed face of someone deep in something – apparently a legal argument, apparently one she was winning. Her hand had moved in her sleep to rest flat on the pillow the way she rested it on documents when she was reading something important.

“Sustained,” Becky said. Satisfied. Final.

Then she was quiet.

Freen looked at the ceiling.

She lay there in the dark for a while. The city outside. Becky asleep beside her winning arguments she would not remember in the morning.

She thought about the notebook in her bag. The one line she had written weeks ago and closed and not looked at since.

She knew what it said.

She had always known.

She thought about saying it out loud. Not tonight – tonight Becky was asleep and winning cases and it would keep. But soon. At some point soon it would stop being the thing she knew and become the thing she said and she was almost ready for that.

Almost.

She closed her eyes.

The city kept going outside.

—

The record happened without Freen deciding to keep one.

She had a notebook. She had always had a notebook – operational notes, threat assessments, the things that needed to be written somewhere before they could be filed. After the mission ended she had kept carrying it out of habit.

Things had started going into it that were not operational.

The three slow desk taps when Becky was thinking something through. The way she held her coffee with both hands when she was reading. The specific sound she made – a very short exhale, barely audible – when she found something in a document that changed the shape of the argument.

The labradors.

The sustained at three in the morning.

The way she said Freen’s name in the morning, slightly different from any other time – lower, less formed, the version that existed before she was fully awake and performing nothing.

Freen did not examine why she was keeping this record. She just kept it.

On a Sunday morning Becky picked up the notebook from the kitchen counter while Freen was making coffee.

She opened it.

She read one page.

She closed it.

She put it back on the counter.

She said nothing.

But when Freen turned around with the coffees Becky was looking at her with the look that didn’t have a name – the one from the courthouse steps, the one from the restaurant, the one that was there more often now – and she held it for a moment before she took the coffee.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For the coffee,” Freen said.

“Yes,” Becky said. “For the coffee.”

Neither of them said anything else about the notebook.

It stayed on the counter.