and he bites."
She moved away. The cat stopped growling and went back to work on the meat. I said, "Would you care for a drink?"
"That might be nice. Do you have scotch?"
"I do." I put ice in a short glass, then dug around for the Knockando.
"Do you live here alone?"
"Yep. Except for this cat."
"You're not married?"
"No."
She looked around at my home. "This is very nice." Like she wanted to talk but didn't know how to begin.
I held out the glass and she took her hands from her pockets to accept it. I went back into the kitchen, opened the oven, and squeezed the potatoes. They were soft. I put them on a wooden trivet on the counter, then removed the little bowl of yogurt and green onions from the fridge. I brought the steak and the steak tongs outside to the grill. Jodi Taylor watched me do these things and followed me out onto the deck without speaking. Her face was creased and intent and I hoped that she wasn't thinking me a drunk. She said, "I love the way barbecues smell. Don't you?"
She held the glass with both hands, and I saw that the glass was already empty. Nope. She wouldn't be thinking me a drunk. I brought out the bottle of Knockando, refreshed her drink, then put the bottle on the deck rail. "Your mission this evening, Ms. Taylor, is the care and handling of this bottle. You are to replenish your drink at your discretion without asking for my permission or awaiting my action in same. Is this clear?"
She giggled. "I can do that."
I smiled back at her. "Fine."
I put the steak on the grill. The coals were a fierce, uniform red, and the meat seared nicely with a smell not unlike the hamburgers we'd cooked at Lucy Chenier's. Put her out of your head, Elvis.
Jodi said, "I'm sorry about what happened."
"Forget it."
"I want to apologize."
"Accepted, but forget it. It's over. It's time to move on." Would Lucy like Cabo? Stop that!
The canyon was quiet except for a couple of coyotes beyond the ridge. Below us, a single car eased along the road, its headlights sweeping a path in the darkness. The sky was clear and black, and the summer triangle was prominent. Jodi said, "This isn't easy for me."
I turned the steak and prodded it with the tongs so the fat would flame on the coals.
"My dad died in 1985. My mom died two years after that. They were everything to me."
"Uh-huh."
"I know who my mom and dad were. My dad was Steve Taylor. My mom was Cecilia Taylor. Do you see?"
"Yes."
"I loved them more than anything. I still do."
Something dark flicked by overhead. An owl gliding along the ridge. Jodi Taylor had more of the scotch and stared at the flames licking the meat. "There are things about Louisiana I want to ask." Her voice was soft, and her eyes never left the flames.
"All right."
"Do I look like her?" We both knew who she meant. Jodi sighed when she said it, as if, in the saying, she had started down a path she had long avoided.
"Yes. You could be sisters."
"And my birth father is dead?" Her eyes never left the flames, never once looked at me as if, by refusing human connection, the questions were unreal and of no more substance than those questions you speak to yourself in the moments before sleep.
"Yes. I spoke with his younger sister."
"My aunt."
I nodded.
"Do I look like her?"
"No." The steak was done but Jodi Taylor seemed poised upon some internal precipice between painful things, and I didn't want to upset her balance.
"But you saw a picture of my birth father?"
"You don't look like him. Your birth father's family is light-skinned, with fine features, but you look like your birth mother."
I flipped the steak again. "Are you sure you want to hear these things?" In the restaurant she had said no; in the restaurant she had been adamant.
Jodi Taylor blinked hard several times and had more of the scotch. The cat crept out onto the deck and sat downwind, barely visible in the dark. Watching. I often consider, Does he wonder at the human heart? Jodi said, "I feel like I'm being pulled apart. I feel guilty and ashamed, as if I'm betraying my mom and dad. I never so much as thought of my birth parents, and now I feel that if I can't find some peace with this it's going to get larger and larger until it's