The question landed and stayed there.
Mahir looked at her — really looked at her, the way he rarely looked at anyone, with the full attention he usually kept distributed across a room so that no single person felt its weight. His smile didn't disappear. It changed quality. It became something more considered, less reflexive, the smile of a man who had just been asked a question he had been expecting and had spent two weeks preparing an answer for and was now deciding, in real time, whether to give the prepared answer or the true one.
"How do we feel," he repeated. Not a question. Turning it over.
Ken had set down the pan. He hadn't made a production of it — hadn't turned around dramatically or crossed his arms or done any of the things that people do when they want to signal that a conversation has become serious. He had simply set the pan down and turned, and now he was leaning against the small counter with his arms loose at his sides, watching.
"Honest answer?" Mahir said.
