They talked. About Elise's family first, her mother's stoicism and her father's quiet pride and the sister Sophie who was studying nursing now and called Elise every Sunday to complain about her anatomy homework.
"My mum wants me to come home for Christmas," Elise said, picking up a gyoza and biting into it, the crispy bottom cracking between her teeth. "She says I sound different on the phone."
"Different how?"
"Quieter." Elise's mouth quirked. "She still sends care packages with canned soup. I'm a professional athlete."
Sienna smiled. She turned her water glass slowly on the table. "My mother sent me a framed concert programme when I moved to Phoenix Ridge. Rachmaninov's Third, San Diego Recital Centre. I think it was her way of saying she was proud, but it came across as 'remember what excellence looks like.'"
Elise laughed, her chopsticks pausing halfway to her mouth. "That's brutal."
"She's not brutal. She's just Korean. When I got the Valkyries job, my father sent me a text that said 'well done' and a link to an article about ergonomic office chairs."
Elise shook her head, smiling. "My dad would have taken me to Applebee's and cried into his napkin. He cried at my college graduation. He cries at dog food commercials."
The tenderness in Elise's voice made Sienna's chest tighten. "That sounds lovely."
"It is." Elise's voice went soft. "He just feels everything and can't hide any of it." She paused, pushing a piece of gyoza around her plate. "Did you have the internet growing up? Like, properly?"
Sienna blinked. "I had dial-up in university. Why?"
"I had dial-up when I was seven. My sister taught me how to download music off Limewire."
"I had cassette tapes when I was seven, Elise."
Elise's grin was wicked. "What was it like, the Paleolithic era?"
"I'm going to leave."
"No you're not." The grin softened, gentler now. "I like that you had cassette tapes. I like that you remember a world before all this." She gestured vaguely at her phone on the table. "It's part of why you're so present. You actually look at people when they talk."
The compliment caught Sienna sideways, arriving through a door she hadn't expected.
The contrast sat between them on the table, unspoken. Elise's father who cried at everything. Sienna's parents who cried at nothing. The age gap between them that showed up in the strangest places.
Elise asked another question and the conversation found another room. She told her more about her parents than she'd told anyone in years: her father's cardiology practice, the long hours and the pager on the kitchen counter, her mother's Steinway grand piano in the living room, the house that hadalways been full of music and silence in equal measure, as if emotion was meant to be performed but never discussed.
Elise listened as she did everything, completely. Her eyes held Sienna's across the candlelight and her body was still and her attention was total.
"That must have been lonely," Elise said.
"It was disciplined."
Elise held her gaze across the table, steady and unblinking. "That's not what I asked."
Sienna looked at the candle flame. It guttered in a draught from the window and sent shadows rippling across the table. "Yes. It was lonely."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. They loved me. They just loved me in their language, and their language didn't have many words." She reached for her glass of water and took a sip. Her throat was tight. She hadn't talked about her parents like this in years, if ever. She'd mentioned them to Helen in passing, mentioned them to colleagues in the context of her medical career, but she'd never sat across from someone and said the quiet part out loud. That her parents' love was real but insufficient. That growing up in their house had been like living in a beautifully maintained greenhouse where nothing was allowed to grow in an unexpected direction.
They cleared the table together. Sienna stacked the containers with her usual neatness while Elise wiped down the surface one-handed, the cloth moving in broad, efficient strokes. Their hips bumped at the kitchen counter when they both reached for the recycling bin at the same time. Sienna stepped back. Elise didn't. The contact lasted less than a second and Sienna's skin remembered it.
Elise made coffee. The process involved spilling grounds on the counter, swearing under her breath, and knocking a spoonoff the worktop with her elbow. Sienna offered to help and was firmly refused. "I'm injured, not helpless." The coffee was too strong but Sienna drank it anyway because Elise handed it to her with a look of defiant pride and criticising it would have been cruel.
They moved to the sofa. It was deep and soft and they sat close together, closer than two people who were maintaining a professional relationship needed to sit. Sienna's knee was six inches from Elise's thigh. The candles on the coffee table were burning low, the wax pooling in the glass holders, and the light was golden and intimate. Elise's shampoo reached her, rosemary, and the clean scent of her skin beneath it.
"Can I ask you something?" Elise said. She was turned toward Sienna on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her, her good arm resting on the back of the cushions. Her fingers were close to Sienna's shoulder.