I paused, looking at him. “You—you’ve been reading to her?”
“Well, sure. Beats all that small talk and temperature taking you’ve been smothering her with.” He laughed. “Woman does not heal by bread alone, mein Captain. Nor does lamb always trump harvest—regardless of what it says in the Bible. She’s smart; I treat her like it. I think she misses teaching. Terribly.”
I stared at the lights in the sky, wondering again if they were intelligently directed or some kind of natural phenomenon. “I didn’t realize it was a competition,” I said, absently.
“Neither did Abel,” he jibed, and shoved me in the arm.
I drained my glass as he looked out over the ocean and the silence reasserted itself. “But then, everything is, I suppose,” he said, after seeming to think about it. “I mean, isn’t that wha
