Snow

"Okay," he said and smiled at her. "Tomorrow."

She stared at him for a moment. "Saints," she said a shade breathlessly. "Alec is a lucky one, even with you being as strange as you are. I bet the first time you met you snagged him with that smile."

David shook his head. "He kicked me."

Gladys laughed. "Why on earth did he do that?"

"He thought I was dead."

Gladys laughed again, then coughed once more. "Hell," she said when she was done, wheezing loudly. "You really are something."

Alec returned when it was dark, his face drawn and his hands caked with dark sparkling dust, one arm dangling strangely by his side. He looked surprised to see David, started to smile and then said, "You're still here," surprise in his voice and a strange look on his face.

"I made dinner," David said.

"You made dinner." Now Alec sounded nervous.

David served gingerbread. Gingerbread and potatoes. Alec grinned at the potatoes--David had baked them, then split them open and filled them with tiny salted fish--and laughed when David told him about what Gladys had said before he left to go to the square. He'd laughed more when David told him about the tea, said, "She hasn't changed a bit," and then, more quietly, "It was nice, what you did for her. She deserves more kindness than most show her." And then he ate most of the gingerbread.

"So how did you get all this?" he asked.

"I went to the square."

"I know that," he said with a smile. "What I mean is how did you pay for it? Did you borrow money from Gladys?"

"No."

"Then how did you buy--?" Alec swept an arm over the table, his smile fading. His other arm was still dangling by his side, strangely motionless, and David realized he hadn't moved it once.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

Alec's mouth tightened. "How did you buy all this?" he said again.

"I had money."

"The money you made singing?"

David nodded.

"How much did you spend?" Alec's voice was clipped, curt.

David told him and Alec got up and disappeared up into the loft, returned carrying a small leather pouch. He opened it and pulled a handful of coins out, put them on the table. "This is for what you spent today." He pulled out another handful and put them next to the first pile. "And this should last you for the rest of the week."

David pushed the first pile of coins back across the table. "I don't need this."

"Take it."

"Why?"

Alec's face tightened. "I don't want anything from you. Not now, not ever. Got it?"

"No."

Alec stared at him. "You shouldn't have spent your money on me," he finally said.

"Why not?"

"You should go back to the square tomorrow," Alec said abruptly. "You liked that, right?"

"I'm going to have tea with Gladys tomorrow."

"You're free of whatever held you before," Alec said, his voice almost desperate. "You can do whatever you want."

"I know," David said. "Do you want the last piece of gingerbread?"

"I don't understand you," Alec said.

"Yes, you do," David said. "You just don't want to."

Alec stared at him, open-mouthed. After a long silence he said quietly, "I'll get you a chair tomorrow. And some blankets. And a pillow."

Chapter Seven

Alec didn't own much to cook with. A couple of plates. A handful of utensils. Three cups. A pot.

A tin. A saucer. Everything except the saucer was chipped or dented.

The saucer was painted all over with roses and if you held it up to the light it was made so finely, so delicately, that you could see right through it and the roses looked almost real, shed red light.

It was beautiful. David found it in the very back of the cabinet one afternoon and set it out that night, put it on the table with a piece of gingerbread resting on it and wondered what Alec would say.

Alec didn't say anything, not at first. He stared at it when he sat down, no expression on his face, but David saw a muscle jump in his jaw. Then he picked it up and dumped the gingerbread onto the table, holding the saucer gingerly, like he feared it might break or didn't want to touch it or both.

"Where did you find this?" he said, and his voice was so quiet it was barely a whisper.

"It was in the cabinet," David said. "Way in the back. I thought maybe the people who lived here before left it but--it's yours, isn't it?"

"No," Alec said and pushed away from the table. "Get rid of it. Don't--I don't want to see it again."

David looked at his still face for a moment. "Okay," he said, and took the saucer. He went out into the hallway and knocked on Gladys's door. She didn't answer but he heard her inside, coughing as her bed squeaked over and over. He left it on the floor.

Alec was sitting by the fire eating the gingerbread when he got back. David looked at him, his carefully blank face, his still shaking fingers, and didn't say anything. He knew what it was like to have a memory you didn't want to own.

***

The day David bought the chicken started well enough.

The night before Alec had said, "Potatoes again?" and then, "David, do you know how to make anything else?"

"Well, I can make--"

"Besides gingerbread."