But Storm remained where he was another second or two, rubbing his arm, puffing his cheeks. Tired. She noticed now he looked terribly tired. The rings deep under his melancholy eyes. The rugged face puffy and slack She felt herself softening towards him—which was irritating, because she found that kept on happening: whatever he said, she was always feeling herself soften towards him sooner or later. It was all that naked affection he threw at her. The goofy American earnestness. Even the fact that he did not react to her wrath in the manner to which she was accustomed was bizarrely endearing.

“Are you feeling all right?” she found herself asking as he wandered back into the kitchen. “You look tired.”

He didn’t answer her. He was opening the cabinet.

“You mustn’t let that old woman run you ragged with her nonsense.”

“At my advanced age, you mean.” He was reaching up for the water bottle now. “Hey, maybe you’re just embarrassed to have your dad see you’re dating an old man.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re not an old man. I like how old you are.”

“Or that I have no culture.”

“Well. Never mind,” said Sophia. “You have many other lovely qualities.”

Storm laughed again, shaking his head. Looked at her like … like she didn’t know what. The man had absolutely no rein on his warmth at all. “I really do love you,” he told her. “I think you’re the greatest.”

She forced herself not to smile. “Well, you do. And I’d be proud to introduce you to anyone.”

“Gah.”

“Well, I would. You know perfectly well it isn’t that.”

“I need an opener for this.”

“It’s in the—”

“Oh, wait, I got it,” he said, pulling a drawer open. “Somebody ought to break the good news to these jokers about the twist-off cap.”

She watched him as he ambled back towards her, swigging from the bottle. Watched him with the first, faint, frightening realization of what he meant to her, of the power she had somehow given him. At first she had thought him just silly—a shallow American. And, well, he was. But she had come to understand that that American shallowness ran very deep. He knew how to overlook things. Like her history. Like her problems in bed. Like all her terrible character flaws. And she saw now that she had come to rely on that.

She was thoroughly dismayed to hear the tone of appeal in her voice when she spoke again.

“My mother didn’t do anything wrong, Richard,” she said.

Storm only shrugged, which made her go sour inside. He sat down at the table. Pulled the plate to him. Didn’t look at her. Pulled the salt shaker to him.