And after all that, they’d both settled in. She’d pounced on her fainting couch with a book on special ed kids, while Maguire had taken the long couch, cocked his stocking feet on the trunk coffee table and was penciling through her lists. Initially he’d done so quietly, but Maguire being Maguire, eventually had to get a pen, a legal pad, to make notes and comments, and eventually he started muttering to himself. Probably because he still thought she couldn’t hear.

“Lobster. Crab. Lobster. Scallops. Hmm. I’m sensing a common theme on your food list. Salmon from Alaska, only really from Alaska. Fresh sweet corn straight from a farmer’s field. Blueberries right off a bush…for Pete’s sake. Has no one ever fed you, girl…?”

He jotted some more scribbles on his legal pad. The last she’d peeked-less than a minute ago-no one had a prayer of reading his writing, including him.

“…Grape leaves. Stuffed, you know, the way the real Greeks do it. Actually, I don’t know, tiger, but I get it that you want authentic. If you’re going to be this easy to please, though, we’re not going to have any fun. This isn’t even challenging. And yeah, I know you can’t hear me. But it’s interesting, having a one-way conversation with a woman who can’t talk back. Kind of every guy’s favorite fantasy…well. Favorite fantasy separate from sex, of course…”

She could hear. Seeing Tommy’s photo had jolted something that morning…but not consistently. Her hearing, the volume of it, had gone in and out for hours now. It was only since dinner that she’d been able to hear anything consistently.

Once he’d hurled himself on the couch with her lists and started muttering, though, she’d heard every word.