Chapter 204: Makima and Mia Bonding
"Downstairs is Makima," said Sean. "She runs the building. Come in."
Mia looked at the building one more time with the evaluating attention she gave everything. Something in her expression registered it the way people registered places that had a specific feeling to them.
"It feels settled," she said. Not to anyone in particular.
"It is," said Sean.
Makima was at the apartment door when they came up the stairs, and she looked at Mia the way she looked at most people the first time, the full assessment that was never unkind but was always complete.
"Mia," she said.
"Makima," said Mia. She glanced at Sean briefly. "You’ve told her everything."
"Yes," said Sean.
Mia looked at Makima for a moment. "Thank you for letting me come."
"Sit down," said Makima. "There’s tea and there’s food and you look like you need both."
Mia sat.
And something in the way she sat, the specific letting-go of a posture that had been held through effort rather than comfort, told Sean that Makima had been right about the hotel room.
They ate. Makima had made something simple, bread and cheese and a soup that appeared to have materialized without any visible preparation, which was something Sean had stopped questioning about her kitchen.
Mia ate with the focused appreciation of someone whose body was overriding whatever their mind was thinking about.
After a while Makima said, "What do you want to do after."
Mia looked up. "After Sunday."
"After all of it," said Makima. "When it’s done and you can think about something else."
Mia held her cup with both hands. "I told Sean I wanted to choose the next thing," she said. "I haven’t figured out what it is yet."
"You’ll figure it out," said Makima. "People who keep lists under pressure are good at figuring out what comes next."
Mia looked at her. "He told you about the list."
"He told me about the list," said Makima.
Something shifted in Mia’s expression. The specific thing that happened when someone was seen accurately and hadn’t expected it. "It seemed like the only thing I could actually do," she said. "I couldn’t get anyone out. I couldn’t stop what was happening. But I could document it."
"That’s not nothing," said Makima. "Documentation is how things that should be stopped eventually get stopped."
Mia looked at her tea.
"My mother used to say something like that," she said quietly. "She’s a nurse. She kept records of everything. She said the difference between a problem that got fixed and a problem that didn’t was always whether someone had written it down properly."
"Your mother sounds like someone worth knowing," said Makima.
"She is," said Mia. Then after a pause: "She doesn’t know where I’ve been. What I’ve been in." She looked at the table. "She thinks I’ve been doing promotional work."
Makima said nothing, just held the space the way she held most things, without filling it unnecessarily.
"I’m going to have to tell her," said Mia.
"Yes," said Makima. Simply. Not making it heavier than it was.
"She’s going to be upset," said Mia.
"Probably," said Makima. "But she’s a nurse who keeps records of everything. She’ll be upset for the right reasons and then she’ll want to understand what actually happened." She held Mia’s gaze. "That’s someone you can tell the truth to."
Mia looked at her for a long moment.
"How do you do that," she said.
"What," said Makima.
"Say the thing that’s actually useful instead of the thing that just sounds good," said Mia.
Makima almost smiled. "Practice," she said. "And a very long time of watching what happened when people said the wrong thing."
Sean looked at the two of them across the table, this specific dynamic that had assembled itself in under an hour, and thought about how Makima had known before he did that Mia needed to be somewhere rather than somewhere else.
He stood up and started clearing plates.
Mia looked at him. Then at Makima. Then she stood and helped without being asked, which was the same thing he’d done in this kitchen the first time and which Makima registered with the same quiet expression she’d had then.
They washed the dishes in the easy rhythm of three people who had found their positions in a small kitchen without discussing it.
Mia stayed until nine.
Not because anyone asked her to. Just because the conversation kept finding new things and the apartment had the specific quality of somewhere that asked nothing of the people in it and that was what she’d needed without knowing it.
At the door she looked at Makima.
"Thank you," she said. The direct version, nothing layered on top.
"Come back Sunday afternoon," said Makima. "After it’s done. You shouldn’t be alone when you get the news."
Mia held her gaze for a moment.
"Okay," she said.
James took her back to the hotel.
Sean stood at Makima’s window and watched the car pull away into the Friday night.
"She’s going to be alright," said Makima, from behind him.
"I know," said Sean.
"I’m saying it for your benefit," said Makima. "Not hers."
He turned to look at her.
She was standing in the middle of her living room with her arms loosely crossed and the expression she had when she was being precise about something.
"You’ve been running for two weeks," she said. "Paris and then this. You haven’t stopped to process either one." She held his gaze. "Mia is going to be alright. The girls on the list are going to be alright. Reyes has what she needs and Sunday morning it moves." She paused. "You can put it down now. Tonight. For a few hours."
Sean looked at her.
"I don’t know how to do that," he said honestly.
"I know," said Makima. "Sit down."
He sat.
She sat beside him on the small couch and put her head against his shoulder and he put his arm around her and they sat like that with the building settled around them