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On the mornings that Yor wakes before Loid, she lays his daily paper out for him and brews his coffee just as he likes. She makes sure not to set the saucer on top of his readings, lest it leave behind a ring and a wrinkle. She serves Bond his breakfast and sets the stove to high, placing their cast iron skillet upon it. By the time Loid has stepped out of the bathroom, clean and accounted for, his coffee is exactly the right temperature, as is the skillet. Breakfast is only a matter of cracking a few eggs, placing down a few strips of bacon, and waiting. Anya wakes, bleary-eyed, to the savory waft of her first meal of the day. As Yor cleans up, Loid takes Bond out.
On the mornings Loid wakes first, he sets the kettle to a boil and decides on a breakfast menu. Yor is never long after him, already dressed for the day. She takes Bond out, and by the time she returns, breakfast is served. Anya wakes to oatmeal, or perhaps potato pancakes, maybe a boiled egg or two, toast and jam and butter. Yor’s tea is brewed with exactitude, two cubes of sugar liquified in its amber heat.
In the foyer, he helps her into her coat. She hands him his hat and briefcase. When Anya scrambles to locate her science project, they upturn the household together until Loid holds it up from behind the couch. Yor laughs behind her hand while Loid lectures. Once they’re ready to step out, Anya leads the way. Yor follows, and Loid takes the tail, shutting and locking the door behind him.
“I’ll be home late,” says Yor as Anya’s bus dwindles into the distance. “Please don’t wait for me!”
“Alright. I’ll have your dinner in the refrigerator.”
“I’ll take care of the dishes if you’ll just leave them in the sink.”
“No need.” Loid smiles. “See you in the morning.”
Two in the morning, she returns home, feet sore. The house is tidy with nary a dish in sight. Her dinner sits patient on the top rack of the refrigerator, a note taped delicately to the plastic wrap. In neat, careful lettering, instructions for reheating. In the corner, a messy doodle no doubt left by Anya. The illegible handwriting beneath her drawing is made legible only by the translation Loid leaves beneath it: Enjoy :-)
—
Anya comes down with something.
“Seasonal, I think,” Loid murmurs, peeling his palm from her forehead, sweeping aside strands of sticky pink. Anya whimpers, cheeks flushed, fists balled in her comforter. Bond whines at her feet.
“Don’t wanna go,” she moans.
“No,” agrees Loid, coming to a stand. He and Yor exchange concerned glances. “You shouldn’t be going anywhere in this condition, least of all a crowded public space. You can stay home.”
His brows crease, lips pursing as if he’s calculating something of utmost importance. Yor interrupts his hesitation. “I’ll call City Hall and let them know I can’t come in. I don’t have any important… meetings to oversee for the next few days. The girls will be alright without me.”
His relief is evident in the sag of his shoulders, the sheepish hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’d really appreciate that. My schedule is a bit tight for the next few days, but I can work from home after Wednesday, if she isn’t better by then.”
“Sounds like a plan!”
Anya has already fallen fast asleep, likely passing out the moment Loid had declared her emancipation from the shackles of her education. Loid heads to his room to change. At the door, Yor holds his briefcase and hat out for him.
“I’ll try to be back in time for dinner.”
Yor smiles gratefully. “Have a good day.”
“If anything comes up, you can call the hospital.”
“Of course.”
He doesn’t make it back in time for dinner, has to make a stop at WISE headquarters late in the evening to change out of his bullet-hole ridden suit. He rushes home in a frantic whirlwind, out of breath when Yor opens the door for him before he can open it himself. “I’m so sorry,” he pants. “Had a particularly unruly patient schedule a last minute appointment.”
She takes his briefcase for him and helps him out of his coat. “It’s alright. There’s dinner in the refrigerator for you.” At his visible curiosity, she laughs. “Mrs. Authen stopped by with chicken noodle soup. Either she has great timing, or she heard Anya coughing through the walls.”
“Is Anya doing any better?”
“I don’t think so. She hasn’t had a fever yet, but I have a feeling it’s the calm before the storm.”
“I’m so sorry you have to take time off for this.”
“It’s no bother! Would you like anything to drink with your… well, I suppose soup is a drink, isn’t it?”
Loid smiles to himself. Yor moves through the kitchen, retrieving his portion, finding a pot for him to warm his meal in. She glances at him sheepishly once she’s turned on the stove. He steps up to the plate, taking up the space beside her. His hand comes to her back, as gentle and warm as the look on his face. “I mean it, Yor. Thank you.”
She flushes. “I—it’s nothing! Really! It’s the least I can do!”
He chuckles. “Least or most, you’re a great help nonetheless.”
Her flush deepens, but her smile is undeniable joy.
—
Anya recovers in another two days. Perfect timing, as Yor is called in for an important meeting the next evening. Unfortunately, Loid catches whatever it is Anya had. He wears a mask and keeps to his room, though Yor insists it isn’t necessary.
“I rarely get sick,” she explains. “I don’t think I have for the last eight years. The doctor says my immune system is impenetrable!”
“I’d rather not risk it,” Loid says, voice thick with amusement—and mucus. “Would you mind taking Anya to the bus stop yourself until I get over this? Sorry to put you out like this for so long. I can’t believe you spent all that time with her and didn’t catch it, while I was out every day and here I am.”
“Of course! And not at all!” Yor hesitates for a second, smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Maybe your stress weakens your immune system.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he replies dryly.
Yor laughs. “I’ll be home late. I’ll ask the Authens to pick Anya up—”
“I can ask Franky—”
“Well, I was thinking the Authens might bring you dinner if they hear you’re sick. You shouldn’t exert yourself,” she says warmly. Loid blinks, stupefied. “I have to go now. I’ll let the Authens know, then. Feel better.”
“Thank you, Yor.”
“Of course!”
Just as Yor had suggested, the Authens do take care of both him and Anya. Loid recovers a day earlier than Anya had, to his relief. Yor remains in perfect health. They take a family outing over the weekend, and while Anya rolls snow with Bond sniffing at her heels, Loid says to Yor, “I should take your advice more often.”
She looks at him in surprise. “You already take all my advice!”
Loid finds himself bewildered once more. “I suppose I do.”
Yor smiles.
—
After a particularly gruesome night, Loid trudges home bloodied and bruised. The apartment is dark, neither Anya nor Yor awake this deep into the morning. Without much thought, he skips dinner to head straight to the bathroom and strip out of his caked clothing to shower. He’d been too exhausted to stop at headquarters to replace his suit and freshen up, wanting only to be home.
It takes another hour to work the blood out of the fibers by hand, yet he still has to run the washer twice for the water to drip clear when he rings his suit out to test. With the clothing both Anya and Yor have thrown into the drum in advance, the larger load takes longer than if it were only his clothing. As he’s finally loading the washed pile into the dryer, he unravels Yor’s black dress from the heap and pauses, puzzled. He doesn’t recall her having worn it recently. Nonetheless, he drops it into the dryer.
Once he’s finally able to start the machine with all the available laundry thrown in, he stumbles into his room and passes out.
He wakes up late in the day, to his chagrin. When he exits his bedroom, hair tousled, Yor is pacing the hallway, bright red and fidgeting up a storm. Her gaze snaps to his, pure panic. “You’re up!”
“Good morning.” At least he thinks it’s still morning.
Yor nods absent-mindedly, eyes darting to the door that hides the washer and dryer. “Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough. Are you alright?”
“Did you do the laundry last night?” she blurts, becoming somehow pinker.
“I did. Did something happen?” Loid pales. “Your red sweater—I threw it in with everything, but I didn’t think to—did it dye everything?”
“No, no, that’s not—I was just—my clothes are so dirty, I’m so sorry, I prefer to do my laundry myself. It wouldn’t be fair to you to have to handle—”
“It’s really no problem, Yor. I can handle a bit of laundry. You do so much—”
“I’d really”—it seems to take everything in her to eke out what it is she wants to say—“I’d really prefer to do the laundry on my own, Loid. Please.”
Loid hesitates. It’s a bit of an odd request given that they separate their intimates from their standard clothing, so the issue can’t be that he might have to handle her lingerie. But there’s a tightness to her eyes that suggests she’s already putting herself far outside her comfort zone making this request. “Okay,” he says. “I apologize if I overstepped.”
“I really appreciate your help!” Yor stutters, shaking a bit. “I’m sorry I’m so—I’d just feel better if I did the laundry, thank you for understanding! Can I ask, though, what… what made you want to do the laundry so late at night?”
Oh boy. Loid rifles through the rolodex of excuses in his head, then settles on an adjusted truth. “Work went long and a bit messy, so I wanted to take care of it as soon as possible. There was a lot of blood in the load, so it took longer than I anticipated.”
“B-blood?!” Yor squeaks, ghostly white. “Th-that can’t be! Why would there be blood? In my clothing? I work in City Hall! I don’t deal with blood! At all! No blood at all! Why would there be blood in my clothing? In my clothing?” She laughs nervously, shrilly.
Loid shakes his head. “Not your clothing. Mine. I had… an especially violent patient last night.”
There’s a long silence. When Loid glances at Yor, she’s staring at him, mouth ajar. His look rattles her out of her stupor. “ Your clothing!” she titters, shoulders collapsing inward. She laughs again, this time lighter. “Well, that’s no problem! I’m great at washing out blood stains. Because of Yuri! He was a clumsy child. Your laundry is in great hands!”
Loid brings a fist to his mouth to hide his amusement. “That’s a relief to hear. Thank you, Yor.”
—
Anya leads the way for another outing, skipping haphazardly ahead. Bond navigates deftly around her messy steps. After a particularly vibrant leap over a sidewalk crack, her scarf unfurls over her shoulder, slipping down, down, down her back.
Yor catches it without err, stopping Anya with a gentle hand so that she can stoop and wrap it back around her neck. Loid, watching from a few steps behind, notices the tag of Yor’s coat peeking out from the collar.
When Anya’s scarf is back proper in its place, Yor comes to a stand. He’s quick about tucking the tag back in, but she still startles, gasping and whirling around, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” chuckles Loid. “Your tag was out.”
“Oh! Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“Mama, Papa,” Anya crows. “Hurry up!”
Loid presses a gentle hand to Yor's arm to usher her forward.
—
Frowning, Loid rummages through the living room console. He doesn’t lose things—it wouldn’t behoove him to, spy and all—but his cufflinks aren’t in the last place he left them. There’s nowhere else they could be.
It’s something of a dilemma, because he and Yor have their quarterly parent-teacher meeting with Mr. Henderson in an hour and a half. He can’t very well show up uncufflinked, potentially giving Henderson the idea that Loid is an entirely inappropriate, irresponsible, and unsuitable father for an Eden Academy student, potentially barring him from the greater conferences that are mandatory of parents, and thus, opportunities to inculcate himself into Donovan Desmond’s good graces.
“Oh!” Yor says suddenly from around the corner, fully dressed. She rummages through her purse hanging from the foyer coat rack. “I almost forgot, I’m sorry! I had to stop by the jeweler’s the other day, and I saw your cufflinks sitting on the console. I thought maybe you’d like them shined.”
She hands him the velvet box. Inside, his cufflinks shine like newly minted coins. A little speechless, all he can manage is, “Thank you, Yor.”
She grins as she fastens them for him. “You’ll look just like all the other Eden Academy fathers now!”
Loid smiles back.
—
Yor comes home one day with takeout. Loid had told her he’d be home late, just before she’d told him she wouldn’t be able to pick up Anya that evening. He’d quickly, easily, let her know that wouldn’t be a problem, he could stop by just for that, she needn’t worry.
Anya clambers up a kitchen stool to help her take down plates to heat their dinner in. She trails behind Yor as they carry everything to the dining table, crashing into the backs of her thighs when Yor stops abruptly.
There’s a glass vase of bright red roses sitting in the middle of the table. They look fresh. Yor has certainly never seen them there before. They’re arranged neatly, stems all trimmed to perfect slants.
“Oh,” Anya says from behind her. “Papa thought you would like them. Well, and then he thought, ‘well, that doesn’t matter, she doesn’t have to like them,’ and then he thought, ‘well, I guess she does, since that’s the whole point, that she likes it, that she’s happy.’ Papa thinks a lot.”
It’s really nice of him. And even if she pushes them aside so she can talk to Anya across the table as they eat, she can’t not see them in the corner of her eye, and she can’t not smile every time.
—
They’re chaperoning at Anya’s second school dance, which is in an hour and a half, and Yor can’t reach the zipper on the back of her dress. She’d gotten it halfway up before her wrist—twisted painfully during a heated fight last night—had protested. Anya’s not available, having been picked up by Becky to prepare together in the Blackwell mansion, which leaves her with only one option.
Face hot, Yor exits her bedroom to dawdle at the lip of the hallway. Loid is too engrossed in his paper to notice her fidgeting. Finally, she clears her throat. “Loid?”
His head snaps up, mouth grim like he’s received tough news. Yor falters. “Is everything okay?” she asks.
His expression smooths. “Yes. Just the news. You know how it is. Really makes you wish there were more seals to report about.” He gives her a rueful look, and she giggles. “Was there something you needed?”
“Yes, my dress, actually, I… I need help with the zipper.”
Loid’s brows crease as he circles the living room, coming up behind her. “Is it stuck?”
“No,” she answers, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s just my wrist, I twisted it last night, so I…”
“Got it.” The sound of the zipper fills the room until Yor feels his fingers leave the nape of her neck. “I can take care of your wrist for you, if you’d like?”
That’s one of the things she’s always like about Loid. If she’d wanted to tell him about her wrist, she would have brought it up earlier. But because she hasn’t, he doesn’t press. He gives her space to lead. Maybe that’s why they work.
“I was worried it would look odd at the dance, with all the other mothers.”
Loid gives her a long look, then nods in understanding. “The minute it acts up, though, let me know. A sprained wrist isn’t any fun.”
Her insides warm. “Thank you.”
He smiles, helps her into her coat, then guides her out the door with him.
—
She can look the part all she wants, but at the end of the day, Yor is no neighbor to nobility. She’s never been. The chasm between where she stands and where the parents of Anya’s peers look down their noses at her is a gaping maw.
She stands stiffly at Loid’s side as he makes effortless conversation with the other parents. She’s entertained a few of the mother’s herself, but she’s not like Loid. She’s awkward, navigating their small talk like a boat on dry land. Can she help it, though? Her world is nothing like theirs, has never been like theirs.
If only Melinda were here. Perhaps having somebody in her corner would make her feel more at ease.
“Yor?”
Yor snaps out of her thoughts to find Loid watching her warmly. “S—sorry! I was… admiring the chandeliers.”
“The Ebertsons and I were talking about how slowly the government moves at times. I mentioned you might have insight, given you work in City Hall.”
“Oh!” She realizes then that the couple standing before them isn’t the one from minutes ago. “Only a bit, really, it can be so complicated. Sometimes meetings about passing cases seem to hit their stride, only to run into one complication. That ends up requiring even more workaround, if there’s any workaround at all. A single case might have to go in circles like that for months. Given just how many restrictions there can be, I’d say our government works pretty fast!”
The Ebertsons are staring at her with wide-eyed fascination, like she’s an aquatic animal behind a glass. Yor’s face heats. It’s the most she’s spoken since stepping foot into the ballroom. Did she say too much? Talk too long? Oh, this is so horrible!
“Sounds exhausting!” The Ebertson wife exclaims. “I can’t imagine the kind of education you have to have received to make sense of any of those meetings. What’s your title, exactly?”
“Oh, I’m a clerk!”
There’s a beat. The excited gleam in the woman’s eye that Yor can’t quite figure out dims. The husband frowns, perplexed. “A clerk? So you handle the finances? An accountant?”
“Oh, no, no, I’m no good with numbers! That’s my brother, though he never did take that skill anywhere… No, I’m just a regular clerk.” She smiles kindly.
“A ‘regular’ clerk?” the wife purses her lips. “What do you really do, then?”
Yor blinks. Had she previously said so much, only to say nothing at all? She does have a habit of rambling. Embarrassed, she tries again. “The girls and I typically take care of refreshments for the meetings. We have to schedule the meetings as well. Quite a lot of cases take months! It’s a lot of organizing.”
“Why, you’re nothing but an assistant!” the wife laughs. “Here I’d thought you were sitting in these meetings!”
Heat races through Yor again, only this time, its shame powering the engine. But there’s nothing she can say to defend herself when a lie hasn’t been told—
“I’d argue Yor has the second most important job in the office,” Loid says, startling Yor. “We’ve all experienced what it’s like to be in recurring meetings about the same topic. We lose our objectivity. Yor and her team are the ones who glean information without bias by virtue of being involved the way they are.”
The Ebertsons gape at Loid like thoughtless sheep. “And,” Loid continues, “it’s her team that ensures our officials can focus on what the meeting is supposed to be about, not whether they have their pens and papers, or notes from previous meetings plus their caffeine. Unless you’re suggesting our government uses tax money paying for positions they don’t really need?”
Loid’s expression remains pleasant. The Ebertsons are red in the face. “W-well, yes, that’s certainly true,” the husband splutters. “I’d never thought about it like that,” he mumbles.
“Hmm,” Loid nods, not looking at all presumptuous. “It can be a matter of perspective. Well, it looks like Anya’s decided she’s going to spend the night at the Blackbell’s. We should get going, dear.”
It takes Yor a second to realize he’s speaking to her. She agrees promptly, jumping when she feels Loid’s hand around hers. “It was nice meeting you,” she says to the Ebertsons, though Loid is already tugging her towards the exit. When it’s just the two of them outside, she glances at him. “Thank you.”
He’s got that look again like things haven’t gone his way, all traces of the patient version of him inside the ballroom swept out. “Not a single useful person with an iota of intelligence in that room,” Loid mutters under his breath. She’s probably not meant to hear.
Yor hides her amusement behind her palm. “Should we stop by the park?”
Loid frowns. “What for?”
“It was stuffy in there, wasn’t it? It’ll be nice to get some fresh night air. And I think it’s a full moon tonight.”
Loid gives her a long look. Then he nods, frustrated lines on his face softening. “Relax and let go.”
Yor nods, smiles, and gives his hand a squeeze. He squeezes back.
—
It goes like this:
Where Loid will stumble, Yor will take his hand. Where Yor will slip, Loid will catch her.
There are certain questions that are never answered—and certain idiosyncrasies that are never asked after—but Loid trusts Yor to do what she believes is best and right and good for each other and their family, and Yor trusts Loid in the same way. In that way, their questions don’t need answering, and their idiosyncrasies don’t need asking after.
The years will pass because peace isn’t easily achieved, and when achieved, it is harder only to maintain. Sylvia will send Loid on mission after mission, and he will return home in blood and sweat and perhaps, sometimes, even tears. Yor will never ask, but she will be there. And when she comes home late, ragged and half-conscious with blood beneath her nails, Loid will help her into a warm bath, will make her tea the way she likes, and wrap her covers around her before turning off the lights.
In the morning, when she wakes, when he wakes, when Anya wakes, when Bond wakes, they will do it all again. And when the line between his brows creases too deep, Yor will suggest fresh air. And when she bemoans her lack of character in the corner of the kitchen, Loid will remind her of all the good she’s done.
Certain secrets will never be revealed, and Loid—Yor, Anya, Bond—will see, one day, working together in the kitchen, that they do not need to be. But that realization won’t come for years. Decades, perhaps. Because while people often deliberate the line between love and hate—how fine it is, how quickly and easily crossed it is—rarely does anybody discuss the line between love and respect.
It is finer still.