EverHeart

Chapter 8: A Place at the Table

LUCY

By Saturday evening, half of Puerto Espera knew Marco.

This was partly Cami’s fault.

“Stop telling people I found him on the beach,” I said as we reached her gate.

“But you did.”

“It’s the phrasing.”

Beside us, Marco carried a bowl large enough to bathe a child in. “I like ‘washed ashore.’ It has drama.”

“You were unconscious.”

“Exactly. Mystery.”

I took the bowl from him. He looked offended.

“I had that.”

“You were holding it with one hand. The other has beer.”

He raised the bottle. “One beer.”

“One hand. I respect gravity.”

Cami pushed open the gate. “Can you argue inside? Mama thinks I’m late.”

“You are late,” I said.

“I brought food. It counts.”

She disappeared into the house.

Marco leaned toward me. “Are we late?”

“No. She is.”

“You’re frightening sometimes.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“By who?”

“People.”

“Administration people?”

I walked through the gate before he could see me smile.

---

The Laurent house had been expanded so many times I doubted anyone remembered its original shape. Laundry hung above the courtyard, bougainvillea climbed one wall, and warm bulbs stretched between the veranda and a mango tree. Beside the kitchen door hung a household ward of red cord and sea glass, polished by years of passing hands.

Two tables had been pushed together beneath the tree. Thirteen people were already there.

Marco stopped. “You said dinner.”

“This is dinner.”

“This is a wedding.”

Cami heard him. “It’s Saturday.”

“That explains nothing.”

“It does here.”

Mrs. Laurent came out carrying grilled fish. She set it down and caught me in a hug before I could defend myself.

“Lucy! You came.”

“You invited me.”

“You always say maybe.”

“That isn’t no.”

“It is when you say it.”

Behind me, Marco made a small sound. I looked over my shoulder. He studied the table with sudden interest.

Mrs. Laurent turned to him. “And you are the beach boy.”

I looked at Cami.

“I’ve been called worse,” Marco said.

“Have you?”

“I don’t remember.”

Silence held for half a second. Then Mrs. Laurent laughed, and Marco laughed with her. She took his arm and steered him toward a chair.

“I can help,” he protested.

“You can sit.”

He glanced back at me. I lifted a hand in farewell.

---

Dinner took another forty minutes to become dinner. People arrived, left, and returned carrying rice or noodles or someone they had found on the way.

Nico brought ice and drinks. He greeted me with an arm around my shoulders, then spotted Marco.

“Still wearing my shirt?”

“It was clean,” Marco said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You brought it up.”

Nico considered that. “Fair.”

He offered me a drink. I asked for water, which prompted an argument about the purpose of vacations. Nico wandered off without winning it.

Marco watched him go.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

Cami looked between us, drew breath, and received my best warning look.

“I haven’t said anything,” she complained.

“You had a face.”

“What face?”

“That one.”

Marco sighed. “Am I the only person who doesn’t know what’s happening?”

“Yes,” Cami and I said together.

“I hate this island.”

Cami gestured at the crowded table and Mrs. Laurent ordering three grown men out of her kitchen. Marco looked around, his smile turning quieter.

“No,” he said. “I really don’t.”

By the time we sat, the table was crowded with grilled fish, chicken, pancit, vegetables, pork skewers, soup, and several dishes I couldn’t identify. Marco tried all of them.

Nico watched his plate fill. “Where does it go?”

“Inside me?”

“You’ve been eating since you arrived.”

“That was before dinner.”

Mrs. Laurent reached past Nico to put more chicken on Marco’s plate.

“Mama,” Nico said. “I’m hungry too.”

“You live here.”

“That makes me less hungry?”

“It makes you less interesting.”

The table erupted. Marco grinned and reached toward a bowl of stew.

Then he stopped.

“Does that have peanuts?”

Mrs. Laurent nodded. “Yes.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I smelled it.” He leaned closer. “And something toasted.”

“Rice,” she said. “Ground rice. My mother taught me to toast it first.”

Marco went still. His eyes remained on the bowl.

Nico broke the silence. “So you’re a doctor and a chef.”

“We don’t know I’m a doctor.”

“You knew the foot thing.”

“Dorsalis pedis.”

“That. And you identified rice by smell.”

“Maybe you cook,” Mrs. Laurent said.

“Or someone around you did,” I offered.

Marco looked at me. “Right.”

Mrs. Laurent offered him more rice. He accepted, and the talk around us moved on.

Later, Marco reached for the chicken platter and found it empty. Without thinking, I moved half of mine onto his plate.

He looked from the chicken to me.

“Eat,” I said.

“You didn’t want it?”

“No.”

I had, but he was already eating it. Across the table, Cami watched me over her glass. I ignored her.

A few minutes later, someone asked Marco where he was from. His smile faltered.

“I don’t know.”

“He’s from the ocean,” Cami said before anyone could stumble over an apology.

“Cala Verde specifically,” Marco added. “Do I get citizenship?”

“After thirty days.”

“Is that a real rule?”

“No,” I said.

“You can’t know that.”

“I know Cami.”

“Same thing,” he conceded.

The conversation carried on without making him answer another question. Marco glanced at Cami, and she gave him a brief smile before stealing the last pork skewer from Nico.

---

After dinner, Nico produced cards. I stood.

“No.”

Marco looked up. “You don’t know the game.”

“I know Cami.”

“Experience,” he told her when she protested.

His fingers closed lightly around my wrist, then let go. “Stay.”

I looked at the empty chair beside him. My book was waiting at the cottage, and no one else had asked me to leave. Mrs. Laurent was cutting fruit. Cami shuffled the cards as though I’d already agreed.

I sat down. Marco pushed the chair in with his foot.

“This is temporary,” I told him.

“The card game? Good. I was worried you’d joined a league.”

I kicked him beneath the table.

I lost the first game. On the final round, I caught Cami sliding a card beneath her thigh.

“You cheated.”

“It fell!”

“The card beneath your thigh.”

Nico shouted in triumph when she stood and revealed it. Mrs. Laurent didn’t look up from the fruit.

“Stop cheating, Cami.”

Marco bent over the table laughing.

“I’m the only trustworthy person here,” I said.

He straightened. “You stole mango from my plate this morning.”

“That was you.”

“That was domestic.”

The table went quiet.

Marco blinked. Nico turned toward him. Cami suddenly found her cards fascinating.

“Food related,” Marco corrected. “I meant food related.”

“Of course,” I said.

His ears had gone pink.

---

It was nearly eleven when we left. Rigging tapped against distant masts, and music drifted up from the waterfront.

Marco walked beside me in unusual silence.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” He took a few more steps. “That was nice.”

“Yes.”

“I kept thinking I should remember something. The food. Everyone talking over each other. Someone yelling from the kitchen.” He took his hands from his pockets. “It wasn’t like the rope. I didn’t know anything for certain. It just felt comfortable.”

“That might be good.”

“Yeah. Like I knew what a table like that was supposed to feel like.” He glanced at me. “Do you have dinners like that? With your family?”

“No.”

He let the answer stand. I appreciated that.

After a while, he said, “My imaginary family is better than yours. They have a chef.”

“You’ve invented a family?”

“Until evidence proves otherwise. Someone taught me about toasted rice. I’ve decided it was my brother.”

“What’s his name?”

Marco thought about it. “Chef.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

He fell behind. “You have a real laugh.”

“Everyone does.”

“Yours doesn’t come out often.”

“Good night, Marco.”

“We’re going to the same house.”

“Then be quiet on the way.”

He caught up.

At the cottage, Marco let us in with his own key. His shoes went beneath the bench; mine went beside them.

He opened the refrigerator.

“You just ate.”

“That was twenty minutes ago.”

“Go to bed.”

“I’m hungry.”

He took out the leftover rice. I watched him find the plates and spoons without searching, then turn the burner knob slightly past its mark. Five days ago, he hadn’t known where he was. Now he knew which burner was temperamental.

“Want some?” he asked.

“No.”

He put enough rice for two into the pan. I said nothing.

A few minutes later, he set a bowl in front of me.

“You said you weren’t hungry,” he said.

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

He sat opposite me, smiling into his own bowl. I picked up my spoon.

The police might call tomorrow. His memories might return, and someone who had known him long before I did might come to take him home. He had a borrowed shirt, a key, and a place at my table. For now, he was using all three.

Marco reached for the chili. I slid it across before he asked.

He paused, then took it. We ate in the quiet kitchen.