Annie wakes up. It's dark. Her stomach growls. Cashmere is silent beside her. Her breathing is so quiet that Annie thinks she must be awake, but as always, she waits for Annie to make the first move.
Annie takes her hand.
"Are you hungry too?" Cashmere whispers.
"A little," Annie answers. She hesitates. If it were just her, she'd take out the bag she brought and eat the little food she has left. But she's going to have to start using the kitchen eventually, and it's not fair to Cashmere to keep her tied to this room. It's late. Surely they'll have the place to themselves.
Every sound in the hall echoes in Annie's ears. As quietly as she can, she tiptoes as quietly behind Cashmere into the kitchen. With her hand hovering over a light switch, Cashmere looks at her, and Annie hesitates. She'd rather keep it off, but in the dark she might bang into something that would wake everyone up. Better turn it on.
In the cupboards and fridge is a stash of food the likes of which Annie's only ever seen in the Victors' Village. "They really do have a lot," she breathes.
Maybe it has to last, but this much food all at once is something Annie's family could only have dreamed of.
Still trying to be quiet, Annie looks for foods that don't need to be prepared. Bread, cheese, tomatoes, milk. Everything's stored differently from what she's used to, but it's not long before Cashmere and she are sitting at the table, gulping down food as quietly as possible.
Even so, they hear a door opening only a few minutes later. One of the women comes into the kitchen. Raych, Annie remembers. "Finding everything all right?"
"We're so sorry," Cashmere exclaims, "we didn't mean to wake you!"
Annie swallows her mouthful fast while nodding urgently.
"You did no such thing," Raych says comfortably. She grabs a bag from the cupboard and pulls up a chair. "I was in my study working late. Nessa's gone to bed, but I'm a night owl. Pretzels?" She holds the bag open toward them.
Annie instinctively shakes her head, and just as instinctively, Cashmere accepts with a grateful smile. Then Annie sees Cashmere glance at her, wondering if she made the wrong move. Annie gives her a reassuring look, all the while wishing she'd stayed in their room after all.
But no, Cashmere's here. And look at how things worked out in Three. Finnick would say to give Raych a chance and get to know her.
Annie makes herself smile. "You were working?"
"I'm an editor," Raych explains. When they both look at her blankly, she elaborates, "Authors write books, and I give the books a second pair of eyes to see what can be improved, before they make it out to readers. I get to do some of my work at home, and the rest in the office. That means I'll be the one you want to come to if you need someone to show you around or give you a ride somewhere."
"And we really appreciate that!" Cashmere says.
Annie seconds that. "And Nessa?" she asks. "What does she do?"
"She's an agronomist." Raych laughs. "No, I don't understand what she does either. It seems very sciency."
"Annie's good at science," Cashmere offers brightly, and Annie blushes.
"Oh, really?" Raych says, curious.
"Yes and no," Annie tells her. "I've only been studying for...not even two years. So I don't know a lot yet. But I was really enjoying learning, oh, electrical engineering, physics, chemistry...and some very smart engineers said I was good for a beginner."
"That's fantastic! Nessa's more into biology, but I'm sure she'll be happy to hear about your interests. What about you?" Raych turns to Cashmere.
Annie can see Cashmere struggling to translate her life story to a world without Hunger Games, so she jumps in with, "Cashmere and I met because she agreed to be my bodyguard. Now we're family." She puts her hand proudly over Cashmere's. "But that's how we started out. She fought in the war, and she keeps me safe."
"Well, it's a good thing you're family now," Raych says warmly, "because you're very safe here and you won't need a bodyguard."
"That's what I'm hoping," Annie says. She doesn't tell Raych that it doesn't matter how safe she is, having a bodyguard is the only thing that keeps her panic at bay.
"But you're not married?" Raych continues, looking back and forth between them. "I'd heard something about a husband..."
"I'm married," Annie explains. "My husband stayed behind to fight. He doesn't really have a choice, in his mind—it's been his whole life." As always, Annie's torn between supporting and worrying about him, between what's good for Panem and what's good for Finnick. "I wish I could, but I can't. Cashmere's somewhere in the middle—she could fight, but she can also stay with me."
"Then I hope he makes it out safely."
Now Raych looks questioningly at Cashmere. Cashmere just holds on to Annie's hand. "Annie's my only family left."
"And you aren't married, I take it," Annie continues politely.
"No, we're married," Raych correct, looking a little surprised. She smiles happily. "Nessa and I've been married fourteen years now."
But then, where are their hu—The answer dawns on Annie and Cashmere at the same time. "To...each other?"
"Of course. What, you two couldn't have gotten married in Panem?" Raych asks, flabbergasted. "Why on earth not?"
Annie turns to Cashmere, but she looks just as baffled as Annie feels. This is not something Annie's ever wondered about. "I don't know. What would the point be? You can live together anyway, you can have sex, you couldn't have babies even if you got married-"
"You could adopt!"
"Yes..." Annie's still trying to apply this new idea of marriage to Cashmere to her life in Panem. "It happens. But you don't get the stipend for adopting, so what does it matter who you're married to? Better to get married to someone and get the stipend when the baby's born."
Raych blinks. "But, but...what if the child's in the hospital? Who makes their medical decisions?"
Annie just stares at her.
"You had hospitals, right?"
Annie shakes her head.
"Oh. Schools?"
Annie nods. "Oh, you mean who gets punished if the kid doesn't show up at school? I don't know anyone who had that happen, but I don't think you had to be married to get punished."
Raych is clearly having difficulty processing all this. Suddenly remembering, Annie turns to Cashmere. "But that was District Four. I don't know know about other districts, or the Capitol. We were never allowed to travel, except—and I never wanted to go to the Capitol."
Cashmere shakes her head. "It was the same in District One and the Capitol. Lots of sex, but only men and women could get married. That's why most of my sponsors were men. Oh, and in the Capitol, you got stipends every year for every kid, not just when they were born. They had trouble with rich families not wanting to split up their inheritances. And I heard that there were fertility problems after the nuclear war, when the laws were getting made."
"Well, we had the same problem!" Raych exclaims, finally regaining her powers of speech. "But that made it really obvious that getting married and having kids had nothing to do with each other. Lots of married couples couldn't have kids even if they had the right parts. And lots of people were popping out kids without a marriage license. Anyway, I'm just glad that Nessa and I can be married."
"And we're glad for you," Cashmere assures her, and Annie nods, although she's still not entirely sure why it's such a good thing.
Except, it would have been nice if she could have married both Finnick and Cashmere. Then Cashmere wouldn't have to feel like the outsider.
Annie's going to have to think about this. Meanwhile, it's starting to look like Finnick was right. This place is different from anything she could have imagined.
In the morning, Annie begs off the clothes shopping expedition with a half-truth about being tired. She is tired. But the world out there is strange and scary.
Cashmere goes with Raych and picks out some clothes for Annie, but she has her own problems. She comes back uncertain and looking for reassurance.
"I'm not used to not knowing how to dress," she tells Annie, when she's got everything spread out on the bed so Annie can look at it. "But everything's so different here. All the dressy clothes were expensive, and nothing looked like what I'm used to at all. And I'm used to knowing who I'm dressing for."
"Oh, Cashmere. You don't have to dress for anyone but yourself here."
Cashmere looks at her like she's speaking a foreign language. She continues, "I decided that the only thing I'm sure of is that I'm your bodyguard. So I got practical clothes: pants, clothes I can move in easily, pajamas instead of a nightgown, that sort of thing.
"I didn't know what to do about makeup, but I didn't get any this time because I wasn't sure what look to aim for. Usually when someone's paying for my makeup and jewelry, it's because they expect to get something out of it. But then I don't know if I'm supposed to look nice anyway..."
Cashmere gives Annie a look pleading for answers that Annie doesn't have. She does her best. "I think you're right, that we shouldn't spend any more of their money than we have to. And you should dress so that you feel comfortable and not worry about using your looks to get results. If we end up with money of our own and you want to dress up, you can."
"But you'll tell me when I should?"
Annie sighs. "We'll figure it out," she says firmly.
Cashmere gives her a stubborn look, and Annie matches it. "I'm not giving you rules. We're in this together."
"Finnick gave me rules."
"I'm not Finnick. I'm not saying he was wrong," she says placatingly, though privately she thinks he took the path of least resistance. "I'm saying that..." Annie hesitates. What is she saying? "I want you to have more confidence in your decisions. I want you to believe in yourself."
"So I'm wrong," Cashmere says flatly. "To want rules."
"That's not what I'm saying either," Annie says. Maybe she should leave it, but she's gone too far. "I didn't save your life, and I'm not the only thing standing between you and captivity. We're a team."
"Okay," Cashmere says, but it's a surrender rather than an agreement.
Annie takes a deep breath. Time. Give it time.
"The food is delicious," Cashmere says, the first night they all have dinner together. Annie thinks it's a bit bland, but she would never for a minute say so. She nods her enthusiastic agreement. It's food!
"Oh, well, we can't take any credit for that," Nessa says. "We buy it at the store and warm it up."
"I noticed," Annie said, jumping on this opportunity to talk about the food without being rude. "You just put it in the oven and all the ingredients are already there?"
"It would probably be cheaper and taste better if we cooked ourselves," Raych admits, "but we don't really like cooking, and we can afford it, so why not?"
"Is it very different from what you're used to?" Nessa wonders. "We always like hearing about food from our students."
"Oh, we didn't usually even buy food in stores," Annie tells her. "We had outdoor markets. It was much sunnier than this, of course. But fish markets, fruit and vegetable markets, milk and cheese stalls...I guess if you had the money to buy bread instead of making it yourself, the bakery had all sorts of baked goods. And we had lots of restaurants for anyone with the money.
"But if you wanted orange juice, you bought an orange and made it yourself. I don't know where I would have bought orange juice. Victors, of course, were spoiled, and we could get deliveries from families that made things like orange juice and tomato sauce for us. But unless you could afford that, you were on your own."
"Pier said it was like that for him, remember?" Nessa nods to Raych. "He grew up on a farm," she explains to them. "What about you, Cashmere? Is this different from how you're used to food being prepared? I know you two said you were from different parts of Panem."
Cashmere shrinks in on herself and takes a big bite to mask her confusion. Yet another question she doesn't know how to field, and she won't ask for clarification or start explaining why she doesn't have an answer. If she can't give a clear, definitive answer to the literal question, she clams up.
"Had you ever been in a kitchen before this?" Annie guesses. She's not surprised when Cashmere shakes her head, no.
Annie bites her tongue on an impatient Okay, Cashmere, you're not stupid because everyone else knows how food is prepared and you've never been in a kitchen. Just explain how you got your food, that's all they want to know. She knows people talk about small, unimportant things as a way of passing the time and getting to know each other. Cashmere comes from a world where every question has one right answer, usually memorized, and could mean the difference between success and failure, even life and death.
So Annie guesses. "In the Capitol, I assume all the food was prepared by servants behind the scenes. I can't imagine they'd let a victor get their hands dirty with something like that. And the academy just gave you healthy food without making you think about where it was coming from?"
Cashmere nods. "They only taught us how to prepare food in the wild. And even then, they were mostly counting on us having sponsors."
"So of course you haven't been in a kitchen. And in the Victors' Village? Did you have someone who lived with you, and made the food? Or came over? Or was it delivered ready made?"
"Deliveries," Cashmere answers, relieved to get specific options. "We had menus, and we'd make a phone call, and it would show up at the door. Even Penny didn't cook, she just had someone bring her the food."
"That makes sense. I used to cook a lot, myself," Annie tells them. "At first Mags lived with me, and she cooked or had food delivered. And I wouldn't stop eating. I must have weighed seventy-five pounds. I don't know what that is in kilos, they told me in Three, but I forgot. Anyway, I was half-starved. And then when Mags moved out, I had nothing to do all day and all I wanted to do was eat, so I had the ingredients delivered and used a recipe book and cooked and cooked."
"You didn't eat as much as Penelope," Cashmere says with a small smile.
"Well, no, not from what you've told me," Annie laughs. "What I did was feed the whole village. I baked and made casseroles and soups and everything I could think of, and they got distributed to everyone, even the victors I didn't know well, Brine, Rudder, and Octavius. And I'd send food home with the kids who brought our deliveries and did our laundry and so on."
"If you like cooking, definitely help yourself to our kitchen," Nessa invites. "Please do treat this as your own home. You're not guests."
"I appreciate that," Annie says hesitantly. "I haven't wanted to because I don't know how much anything costs."
"Not a problem. We've had students who liked to cook before, or just plain didn't like what Raych and I eat and missed the food they were used to. We give you a budget, and as long as you stick to it, you're welcome to make whatever you like. And if you want to make enough to share—hey, Raych and I have to eat too! We're not picky eaters, and we're always happy if our students want to introduce us to new foods."
"But you don't have to," Raych jumps in. "It's not like we can complain if you don't like cooking, after all."
Annie smiles politely, but without deliveries, cooking isn't going to be as easy as it was in the Village. And it doesn't sound like Cashmere's going to have any confidence navigating a store. "Maybe...you do your own shopping?"
"I usually pick up what's on our shopping list once or twice a week when I'm not in the office," Raych says. "Less crowded."
"So maybe you could buy what you think you'd like, and I'll make it? If you have a cookbook, I'm willing to try anything new, or we can go over what ingredients I'm used to beforehand."
"Oh, I'm happy to show you around the store, show you how it works, our currency if you're not familiar with it. You'll get used to it in no time."
"Yes, well..." Annie looks down at her plate, takes a bite. She glances out of the corner of her eye, but Cashmere's not rushing to volunteer to go shopping. She probably will if Annie asks, but not without a silent freakout, and she doesn't deserve that. "I'm not very good about going outside. Not since I won the Hunger Games. I came back with a lot of damage, but that was about the worst."
"Really?"
In Raych's surprise, Annie can feel a familiar conversation looming. She doesn't want to be rude, but the fear and the frustration are too much and she bursts out, "And don't tell me it's safe here! I know that. I knew it wasn't that dangerous there—I was the only victor who couldn't go outside. But they broke me in the arena and that's all there is to it. I'm sorry."
"You came all the way here, though," Raych points out, bemused.
"Because I was more scared to stay there! Because they were going to capture me and torture me and get me to betray everyone with what I knew, and see if they could use me to capture my husband so they could do the same to him. But now I'm here and I just can't bring myself to go outside. And don't tell me it doesn't make sense. I wish I made sense to myself."
Raych and Nessa exchange a long look. "And this all started when you were forced into some kind of arena for children and almost died?"
Annie nods.
"Did you ever get any help?"
She finds herself nodding and shaking her head at the same time. "Some of the other victors tried to help, and they did a little, but no one ever got very far. It wasn't for lack of trying."
"Okay. But professional help, doctors, that sort of thing?"
Annie shudders. "The doctors were one of the scariest parts of the Capitol. Later I got some pills that put me to sleep, and some that made me numb when it got to be too much, and those helped. But I haven't had them in years. Mostly what helps these days is having Cashmere around. But I still can't go to the store like a normal person."
"Well, it sounds like you could use some professional help," Nessa tells her.
"Non-scary professional help," Raych adds.
"I can only imagine what you've been through, but I'm sure we have better resources than what you had back home."
"That's what Finnick said," Annie says, still looking at her plate. "But that has to cost money, right, seeing doctors? Maybe, with Cashmere's help, I'll be able to get a job, and then we'll see if anyone can do anything for me."
"But you can't even go to the store!" Raych objects. "How are you going-"
To her horror, Annie starts crying. She buries her face in her hands, trying to be reasonable and sobbing instead. "I know, I know! I want my life back, I want to be able to do the things I enjoy, I don't want everyone else to have to take care of me. But I don't know how!"
She's so embarrassed that she staggers to her feet, still covering her face, but then somehow Cashmere is standing right next to her. In confusion, Annie finds herself wrapped up in her arms instead of fleeing back to their room.
"I'm sorry!" Raych exclaims, flustered. "I said that badly! I just meant, we should help. Treatment first, and then it'll be easier for you to get a job."
Annie sniffles, trying to get herself under control. "But you're already feeding us and you bought us new clothes and everything," she protests. "And what if it doesn't even work? I'm already afraid of how long it's going to take before I can move out."
"Oh, child, don't worry yourself about that. When we took on refugees, we knew it might take more than one school year before you were fully self-supporting. And if you need medical care, well—"
"With what you've been through," Nessa sniffs, "we're surprised you don't need more. Don't worry about it. We'll look into how much it costs and how often we can afford it, and we'll talk."
Turning around, still with Cashmere's arms around her, Annie wipes her eyes and looks at the two older women with awe. "Really? But I don't know if I can pay you back."
"So get on your feet and go do something nice for someone else when you can afford it," Nessa tells her. Annie gasps at the echo of Mags. "We don't take in students as a financial investment."
"Ditter broke his arm that time," Raych remembers.
"He was being reckless," Nessa says brusquely. "And we still paid to have it set. Would you feel better cooking for us, dear? It'll probably save us at least some money, if that helps you sleep at night. And even if not, it sounds like it'll be delicious. We'll pick up the food."
Annie nods. "I'd love to. I don't know what kind of food you have to cook with, but I'll give it my best shot."
"We do have cookbooks," Nessa starts to say, but Raych interrupts her with a snort.
"You know what to do with a potato?"
A small smile breaks out on Annie's face. "I know twenty things to do with a potato."
"Then that's plenty to be getting started with. And you?" Nessa looks at Cashmere. "Do you need any medical help?"
Cashmere shakes her head hard. "I don't need anything. I can go to the store. I can do the shopping. If you show me how. I can do anything you want."
"Thank you," Annie says. "Thank you all. Now, where's that cookbook?"
Annie tiptoes out to the living room to slide the book she borrowed back onto the shelves. But it's a fat one, and she's still trying to squeeze it back in when the door to the study opens, and Raych comes out. Annie steps quickly away from the shelves, trying to look like she's just browsing, but Raych pauses and smiles at her. "The Secret of the Sleeping Tiger? What did you think of it?"
Caught. Annie stalls for a few seconds with a polite smile. "I wasn't able to finish it," she admits. "The language is still too different. I'm still having to read one sentence at a time."
"Oh, yes, that would make it slow going," Raych says sympathetically. "A mystery's probably not the best place to start either, with the culture gap. Too many things the author will take for granted." A thoughtful frown crosses her face. "You know, what you need is juvenile, maybe young adult, fiction. Not baby books, but something that'll keep your interest while being shorter and less complex. Then you can work your way up to reading anything you want."
Raych's face is alight with the enthusiasm of her plan, and Annie has to throw up her hands and wave them frantically no, no. "No, it's okay, I don't need you to go to any extra trouble for me! You're already giving me and Cashmere a place to live and feeding us, and you promised to pay for my medical expenses, which you don't even normally do for your students! Really, please! Don't worry about me. I have everything I need here."
Annie's smiling intensely, trying to communicate her undying gratitude with her body language as much as her words, but Raych is undaunted.
"But that's the beauty of it! It's no trouble at all, and it won't cost me a bit. I'm an editor, of course I have a subscription at the local library. All I do is pay a little money every month, and I can borrow as many books as I want, as long as I return them by the end of the month. I'll pick out a few for you and bring them home next time I'm there."
"Really?" Annie asks disbelievingly. "How does that work? And you're sure it won't cost you anything?"
"It's just a lending library, a building not far from here," Raych explains. "It's free for anyone to go inside and browse, and sit down and read. If you want to take books home, there are different subscription plans. I have the unlimited one, so as long as the books come back on time and in good condition, they're free. I've already got the subscription, so we might as well make the most of it."
She's beaming at Annie, and Annie hesitantly says, "Well, if it's really no bother, it would be wonderful, I have to admit."
Finnick likes being useful; maybe Raych does too, and this is something easy and rewarding she can do.
"Annie, I keep saying I'm a professional editor. There's nothing that would give me more pleasure than bringing more books into the house and seeing someone use them."
True to her word, Raych is practically bouncing when she returns home from her next visit. She even comes to the closed bedroom door and knocks on it. Annie, who listened with mounting dread to the sound of Raych coming down the hall, isn't taken by surprise, but she does feel the old urge to hide and pretend she didn't hear the knock, the urge she thought she'd overcome in the Village, years ago.
Pretending to herself is harder to convincingly do with Cashmere right here. Even though Cashmere's sitting quietly, waiting for Annie to take the lead, and won't say anything if Annie holds her breath until Raych is gone, the last thing she wants is to feed Cashmere's fears. They have to be strong for each other, and Annie's better at spontaneous encounters. Cashmere's at her best when she has a specific goal and knows exactly what to say.
So Annie grabs onto Cashmere's hand and calls, "Come in!" as cheerfully as she can.
A sound of fumbling at the door, and Raych enters with her arms full of books. "Don't worry!" she says when Annie's eyes go wide. "I'm not expecting you to read all these. I'm not sure what your reading level is, so I got a whole range of them. Flip through them and figure out what works for you, and next time I'll bring more like that."
Looking around, Raych spots the bare desk. "Mind if I dump these here?"
Once she does, her hands sort them efficiently into neat stacks while she talks. "I hope at least one of them is to your liking, but it should give you an idea of what's out there. If you have any requests for next time, I'll be happy to see what I can do. And do please come to me if you don't know a word. I've included a dictionary that I own—I own more dictionaries than shoes—but the words in the definition might be new too. So come to me. Or if anything at all doesn't make sense. I know you grew up in a completely different culture."
Annie is overwhelmed by the excited flood of words, but she summons a friendly smile. "I didn't even know what a lending library was!"
Raych grins back at her. "I'll leave you to it, then. Remember, if the door's open, don't hesitate to come on in."
Once she's alone with Cashmere again, Annie goes over to the desk and inspects the books. A thin one with a cat on the cover, a longer one with railroad tracks...book after book after book.
Annie waves one in Cashmere's direction. "Want to pick one out for yourself?"
Cashmere shakes her head once, and Annie doesn't press. Who knows what kind of memories around books the academy left her with. Probably perfectionism and humiliation.
Finally Annie decides to start with the simplest one, and then if it's too easy, work her way up. She flips through them quickly until she's figured out which one that is, and goes back to sit cross-legged on the bed. But every sound from the apartment outside is distracting, and she can't help fretting about how much trouble Raych went to to get her these books, and what if she can't get through any of them...? Then she gets frustrated over her inability to concentrate.
"Cashmere, would you mind keeping watch?" It's weird, because it's not like Annie doesn't know at all times that Cashmere's on guard. But there's a certain relief to formally asking Cashmere to pay attention to their surroundings so Annie doesn't have to. Sometimes it lets her brain shut up for a while. The peace and quiet never lasts long, but Annie will take what she can get.
"Sure!" Cashmere agrees, with more enthusiasm than Annie can ever understand. How are you not bored living with me?
"Or, I don't know, would you rather I read out loud?" Annie hazards.
"Okay!"
Same enthusiasm. Annie narrows her eyes, but she knows that asking more questions won't get her any closer to knowing what Cashmere really wants. "All right. Just let me know if you get bored."
Reading out loud helps. Sometimes the sound is more familiar than the spelling. And it forces her to admit if she doesn't quite understand something, and then she looks it up in the dictionary or writes it down to ask Raych later, rather than glossing over it. It's slow going, but Annie has nothing else to do all day, and it's definitely going to help her adjust to her new country.
After a few days, she's collected a list of questions, and Raych is home with her door open. Annie ventures out, and Cashmere comes with her to stand guard.
"Wow, that's a lot of books," Annie laughs, looking around Raych's study. Not only are there more overflowing bookcases here, but piles of books on the table and what must be hundreds on the floor.
Raych peers sheepishly over the piles of papers on her desk. "I know, I keep meaning to buy more shelves and get someone to assemble them. When we bought the place, we paid someone to carry all the furniture upstairs and put up shelves, but I didn't anticipate my book collection getting this out of control."
Annie gives her an amused, perplexed smile. "I can assemble shelves. It's easy."
"Really? Like cooking?" Raych teases.
"Easier! I built boats for a living at home, you know."
Raych frowns. "I thought you did science."
"No, that was later, after the war started. I got thrown into a bunker with a bunch of engineers who decided I might be good at electronics precisely because I can read schematics and build stuff. Then they started lecturing me on science. I think mostly because they couldn't help themselves. Anyway, I'd be happy to build you as many shelves and bookcases as you like."
"That would be lovely, and I'd really appreciate it, but Nessa and I don't want to exploit you."
"No, you don't understand how much I need things to do. I can't work, I can't go to school...I had the hardest time in the Victors' Village when I had money and couldn't leave the house. I took up cooking to keep me busy, mostly. That's how I got so good, four years with nothing else to do. Then I ended up renovating my whole kitchen that last year, new cabinets and countertops and an island and everything."
"Sounds like you're the perfect person for the job, then." Raych grows thoughtful. "I suppose we'll have to buy tools...you'll have to give me a list."
"You don't have tools?" An apartment like this, and they don't even own enough tools to build shelves?
"Are you kidding?" Raych laughs self-deprecatingly. "Have you noticed how much kitchenware we've had to buy since you started cooking? I don't know what we're going to do with it when you move out." An idea occurs to her. "Maybe give it to you, and then you can invite us over for dinner."
"Oh, but you paid for it-"
Raych shakes her head firmly. "Consider it a housewarming gift when you get your own place, and a decluttering aid for us."
"Deal!" Annie says automatically, and then her heart clenches at the echo of Finnick's voice.
"Fantastic! Now, what brings you here?" Raych spies the book Annie's holding. "Wanted help with your reading?"
Annie nods. "It's such slow going, and there are some parts I can't make sense of even when I figure out what the words mean."
"Pull up a chair, then," Raych invites. "We're going to have you reading like a pro in no time."
Reading is hard, but assembly is easy. Long before Annie is reading like a pro, she's showing off the study with Raych.
Cashmere and Nessa look around admiringly. "Annie's really good with her hands," Cashmere says proudly.
"I can see that," Nessa agrees. "Very nice. It almost seems weird to have this much floor space free."
Raych swats her wife on the arm. "And look, she even carved bookends for the shelves over the desk. Now I can keep the reference books I use the most up there."
Annie smiles, pleased. "Well, books are rectangular, so it was easy to carve a bookend that looked like a row of books. I don't know if I could have carved, say, a lion."
She steps aside for Nessa to come in and see the bookends up close. Nessa starts laughing. "You had her carve the names of your favorite books into the spines?"
"Yes," Annie answers, "and I had to get the proportions right too. No titles of short books on giant tomes."
Raych brags, "She made dinner too."
"I can smell it," Nessa says warmly.
"We need to adopt more refugees!" Raych jokes. Then her smile vanishes. "I'm sorry, that was unforgivable. I didn't mean to-"
"It's all right," Annie assures her, still smiling. "You never met him, but I'm married to the master of inappropriate dark humor. I took your compliment the way you meant it."
"Maybe so, but laughing at your own tragedy is one thing."
Nessa rescues her wife and changes the subject. "You said you used to do this for a living, Annie? Is that something you'd still want to do?"
"Well," Annie says hesitantly, "I don't know how well it pays? Repair work didn't really pay where I lived, but if one of my neighbors needed help, sometimes they'd have extra food or a pair of shoes or something. There were actually laws about who was allowed to charge for what, so I always had to work for free, and then my family would accept the gifts under the table." Annie always had to remember to be grateful when the gifts went to her family, not to her. "Building boats paid because it was the government that wanted their fish, and our district had quotas to meet."
Nessa shrugs. "You won't get rich building shelves and fixing people's sinks, but especially if you join a business already making money off of it, you can support yourself. I can help you look into that if you want, when you're ready to start looking for work."
"I'd really like that, thank you."
Annie wants to get out and start being self-supporting, but even just the first part, getting out, is already filling her with dread. That's what professional help is for, she reminds herself.
Except professional help won't come to her; she has to go to it.
She hopes she can.