Page 95 of Crosswind

Lucia, who has been walking on Jan's other side, says, without looking up: "You're going to make me feel single."

"You are single," Jan says.

"I know," she says. "You're making it feel worse.”

— — —

Lunch at Jan's parents is — everything the Friday lunch was and more, because by Saturday afternoon something has shifted. The conversation moves more easily. Jan's father asks me questions and listens properly to the answers, the way he did on Friday but with less formality now, the way you talk to someone you've already decided you like. Jan's mother cooks something that requires most of the morning to prepare and she is entirely unbothered by the fact that we are staying for dinner too, which is settled at lunch as a simple fact and not a question.

At some point in the afternoon Jan's father and I end up in the sitting room while the others are in the kitchen, and he sits back in his chair and looks at me with the direct quality he has and says: "He is different. Since you."

I look at him.

"Lighter," he says. “Less…contained.” He pauses. "We noticed, when we saw him last. Something had changed. We didn't know what. Now we know."

I don't say anything.

"We are glad," he says. Simply. And goes back to his book.

Dinner is long and warm and Jan's mother keeps putting more food on the table and telling me I am too thin, she says this in Czech and Jan translates it and I tell Jan to tell her I'm doing my best, and the evening stretches in the way of evenings that have decided not to end yet.

At some point, over dessert, Jan's mother puts her chin in her hand.

"I want grandchildren," she says.

There is a silence.

I laugh. I cannot help it.

Jan goes the colour of someone who left a city to escape exactly this and has been followed.

"There are ways," his mother says serenely. "I'm just reminding you."

"We know," Jan says. "We are aware of the ways."

"Good," she says. And takes more cake.

I look at Jan. He looks at the ceiling. His father is very carefully examining his dessert spoon.

"Don't," Jan says to me.

"I'm not saying anything," I say.

"Your face is saying something."

"My face," I say, "is happy."

We leave late. Jan's mother hugs him at the door for a long time, then me, and says something in Czech to both of us.

"What did she say," I ask in the street.

Jan walks for a moment.

"She said come back at Christmas," he says.

I look at him.

"Both of you," he says. "She specified."