THIRTY-NINE

“You know, you don’t have to do this.”

As Marisol spoke up from behind the wheel of his Range Rover, Assail shook his head. “I rather think it is an imperative at this point. Your grandmother has cooked for us non-stop, and as much as we adore her food, all her one-sided effort is making us feel unchivalrous.”

In the glow of the dash, the smile that hit his female’s face was lovely, small and private, as if his thoughtfulness, and that of the other males in his househould, had touched her grandmother very deeply.

“I would have you look like this always,” he murmured.

“Then all you have to do is be nice to my vovó.”

“I intend to.”

The bridge across the Hudson was lit from above, the illumination strung along its soaring suspension girders such that it appeared as though great wings were swooping over the river. Previously, he had always imagined them as that of a bird of prey. Now, he saw them as far more peaceable. A dove’s. Or mayhap a seasonal cardinal coming in for a branch landing.

“I think it is amazing, the places life brings you.” He glanced over at his female once more. “I would never have pictured myself here in Caldwell when I was in the Old Country.”

“I know, right? It’s all so random, and yet seems inevitable somehow?”

“Tell me of your family. Apart from your grandmother.”

The change in Marisol was immediate, an abrupt tension stiffening her in her seat and furrowing her brow. “What do you want to know.”

“You do not have to speak of them if you do not wish.”

“It’s fine.”

“Perhaps another subject would be best?”

“Whatever you think.”

Unsure of what to do, he went quiet. And the awkward silence in the vehicle lasted all the way through their getting on the Northway on the far side of the bridge and progressing several exits up to the first of the suburban areas where the Big Hannaford, as his cousins called it, was located.

“I think I’ve been to this store before,” Marisol said as she guided them onto a descending ramp and to a stoplight at a four-lane road.

“Ehric tells me this is where we must go,” Assail offered, “and I do not argue these things.”

Although in truth, he didn’t believe he’d been to a supermarket in…all right, so it had been a very, very long time. With little to no culinary skills of his own, he’d always been an eat-out kind of male, but Marisol was changing this. Just as she was changing everything.

When they arrived at the grocery, she found a space for them very close to the entrance, and he got out, buttoning up his fine black cashmere overcoat. Underneath, he was in one of his suits, which was a tad overdone for this sort of thing, sartorially speaking—but this was a bit of a date, was it not?

“May I give you my arm?” he offered.

It was a relief to have her accept the gesture, and as they walked to the garishly lit entrance, he told himself all was well. All was fine. He was going to leave the subject of family well enough alone, and when they returned home, he and his cousins would prepare a nice meal for Mrs. Carvalho—and hopefully thereafter, he and Marisol would discreetly retire upstairs for some private enjoyment.

And then what, a voice in the back of his head asked. More of the same on the morrow? A housemale living out his hours—

“I’m sorry, what?” Marisol asked as the automatic doors parted for them.

“Nothing, my love. Shall we get a cart?”

She went over and untangled one from the lineup, and then they were in the store proper, surrounded by a surplus of such magnitude, he was momentarily struck stupid. The fact that the interior of the grocery was lit up bright as the outer crust of the sun did not help. And then there was the ocular insult of aisle after aisle after aisle of colorful labels and logos and foodstuffs of incalculable variety.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a supermarket,” Marisol said. “You look like you’re facing Mount Everest.”

“It is…a bit daunting.”

“You want to do vegetables first?” As he just stood there, she laughed softly. “Maybe I should rephrase that. Let’s do vegetables first. Come with me.”

Assail followed her to the left, past a floral display where pre-made bouquets were wrapped in cellophane. He grabbed two bundles of white roses.

“She’ll love those,” Marisol murmured.

“One is for you.”

He kissed her as he put them in the cart, and then they were penetrating a forest of fruit and vegetable displays.

As Marisol stopped them in the midst of the bins and bushels, and looked at him with expectation, he realized he was going to have to make the decisions—and tried to recall recipes from the Old Country.

Mayhap he should have thought this through a bit more.

But surely he could remember something. Surely…he could think of one dish, one soup, one meat.

As it turned out, Assail had to go way back in his memories. To the castle he had grown up in…it had had a kitchen separate from the main living area as a fire preventative, and he could remember being little and staying for hours and hours beneath the rough oak table, watching the doggen turning animal carcasses, and root vegetables, and grains, into proper meals.

“Turnips. Onions. Potatoes. Carrots,” he announced.

Like a dam released, he connected with what he wished to prepare, and he was aware of a feeling of pride as he led the way now, picking and choosing and filling plastic bags…then taking his female and the cart to the meat counter and securing lamb.

After that, they were in the dairy section, and he had to pause to ponder how much cream he required—

“My father was a criminal,” Marisol said in a low, tense voice.

Instantly, Assail grew quite still and then he swung his eyes to her.

“Have I shocked you?” she said tightly. “It’s the truth. He died in jail under circumstances that I’ve never truly gotten to the bottom of. Could have been a fight. Or cancer. But I believe he was murdered, although I will never say that in front of my grandmother.”

Assail blinked. “I am so sorry.”

The way she shrugged and wrapped her arms around herself broke his heart. “That was how I got into…you know, my side of things. He taught me how to steal. How to break in to places. How to take things without being caught. And you know, all that would have been fine if it had been a case of him teaching the younger generation the family trade, so to speak. But that wasn’t why he did it. He discovered that someone cute and disarming could be a great thief—and then he could have more things to sell for the drugs he wanted. It was all for him.”

Abruptly, she looked at the egg section. “We’re almost out of these. Vovó prefers the brown ones.”

Marisol went over, picked out two cartons, and flipped open the lids to check for broken shells. As she did, she continued, “I actually got good at robbery because I wanted him to be proud of me. Pretty sick, huh? Become a better immoral deviant so Daddy will love me. I think that’s why I fell in with Ricardo Benloise. He was older, powerful, and very disapproving. He was someone for me to try to please again.”

As a vicious claw of jealousy went through Assail, he had to remind his bonded male that he had, in fact, murdered the man.

Funny how that could cheer a guy up.

“Ricardo was so like my father…except he was polished, not crude. And he was hella smart. It was a strange dynamic to be sure. They say that people find do-overs in their lives, folks who are like those who hurt us, so we can go through and do the relationship again. Get it right, or something. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

On some level, the idea they were having this intimate conversation in the dairy and egg section, across the aisle from the ice-cream freezers, was utterly bizarre. But he certainly wasn’t going to stop her from talking.

“What of your mother?” he asked.

Marisol shrugged and seemed to lose track of her shell-checking duty. But then she continued, both with the inspection and the talking. “She died when I was young. Thank God my grandmother stepped in when I was little and never left.” She leaned over the lip of the cart and placed the eggs down with care. “That’s why I will always take care of her. Plus, God, she’s had a horrible life. She is a true survivor.”

“So are you.”

That smile, that one he loved so much, came back. “I guess I am.”

Assail stepped in and embraced her against his chest. As he looked over the top of her head, he subconsciously tracked the movements of the human male and the human female down at the far end of the aisle by the precut-and-shredded-cheese displays. Both were in blue jeans and dark parkas and seemed to be arguing the merits of orange versus white cheddar strips.

As it occurred to him that that was a rather inane topic to pour so much energy into, that rippling sense of unease returned unto him.

“I think we’re done shopping,” he said as he eased back. “Shall we?”

“Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She laughed. “Just a saying.”

To pay for their purchases, they went through self-checkout, and they split the duties, her picking things out of the cart, and him sweeping the foodstuffs across the red laser crosshairs of the reader. Every time a bar code was successfully recorded, the machine let out a beep! and a disembodied female voice announced the price and told him to place it in the bag.

Every. Single. Time.

By the end, he was seriously considering taking out his gun and killing the machine.

When they reemerged into the parking lot, his unsettled feeling returned. And as he helped transfer the groceries into the back of the SUV, he pictured an endless succession of nights such as this, to’ing and fro’ing from the supermarket.

There was no challenge here, nothing to conquer or surmount. No tally growing to justify his worth.

Just root vegetables, cream in a little box, eggs in two cartons.

Assail found himself wanting to return to the jubilant glow he’d felt as he had traveled home from the clinic, leaving the psychosis, the medical staff, the patient he had been behind. The world had seemed full of possibilities then. Now, he was left wondering where all that had gone.

Except nothing about the world had changed, really. And as he and Marisol traveled the stretch of bridge again, he tried to manufacture the optimism and failed.

“What about your family?” Marisol asked. “Are they still alive?”

“My mahmen and my father both died of old age.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“It is what it is. It does not bother me anymore as it was some time ago.”

Which was the truth.

What did bother him was the fact that he had found the person he wanted to be with…but he did not know where his place in the world was anymore.

For a male who had always been self-directed, this was not a comfortable situation to be in.

“Dr. Manello is coming tonight, isn’t he?” Marisol asked.

Assail looked away from the drop down to the icy cold waters of the Hudson. “I had forgotten. But yes.”

And he was bringing Ghisele again.

God, that was another thing he didn’t want to think about. Feeding reminded him of all that he was keeping to himself. Plus he hated the idea of being close to any female other than Marisol in any manner.

Biology trumped everything, though. Or maybe it was more like trampled.

It was rather like destiny, in that regard.