Free I'll Sing for my Dinner by BR Kingsolver Page B

blasting through the house. I turned it down to a background music level, and almost immediately heard her bounding down the stairs.
    With a leap, she flew into my arms, landing on my chest with her arms around my neck and her legs wrapping around my waist. I staggered, and the kiss she planted on my mouth almost made my legs give out.
    “I love you, Mr. McGarrity,” she said with a smile. “Guess what? I’m getting as fat as a pig. Will you still love me if I’m fat?”
    I had to laugh. “I doubt that anyone would use the word fat to describe you.”
    “I weighed myself. A hundred five pounds. I’ve never weighed that much in my life.” She pursed her mouth and looked down, then back at my face. “You would think that some of that would end up in my boobs. But I guess it’s all landing on my ass. Will you still love me when my ass is so big it won’t fit on a barstool?”
    Since I was holding the anatomical part under discussion, I squeezed it. “I think you’ve got a long way to go before we have to worry about that. You’re beautiful, Cecily, and I’m very happy that you’re filling out. You were way too thin when we met.”
    “Yeah, not eating for a few weeks will do that for you,” she said. “But still, I don’t think it’s normal to gain twenty pounds so quickly. Does good sex make you gain weight?”
    I carried her to the couch and sat down, with her straddling my lap. “We need to talk, sweetheart.”
    She sobered. “Okay. You look so serious. What’s going on?”
    I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the CDs. She stared at them as though I held a snake. Her hands pushed against my chest, and she tried to get up, but I held her firm against me.
    “Cecily, I found out a lot of things about you today. I know about Edward Jimenez.” She tried to get away again, her face twisting in pain. “No, wait. Listen to me. I love you. None of this changes that. Do you understand me? I’m not leaving you, and I’m not letting you leave me. If you’re in trouble, we’ll deal with it together.”
    She searched my face, and I guess she decided she liked what she saw there, because she kissed me. Slowly and tenderly.
    “You’re too nice for your own good,” she said. “How did you survive in a war zone?”
    “By being as tough as nails and faster than the guys who were trying to get me,” I answered. “Cecily, we’ll get through this, but it’s time for you to be honest with me.”
    Nodding, she said, “Let go. I can’t talk like this.” When I gripped her tighter, she said, “I’m not going to run away, but I can’t think when I’m this close to you.”
    I let her go, and she paced around the room, a look of intense concentration on her face. Stopping in front of the window, she asked, “How much do you know? What kind of trouble do you think I’m in?”
    “I was told the federal authorities are looking for you. And that maybe some drug dealers are looking for you, too.”
    “Shit. I’ve checked, and I couldn’t find that an arrest warrant had ever been issued. I hoped that maybe I’d gotten away with it.”
    “There isn’t an arrest warrant. The FBI has a material witness warrant out for you. It was issued under a seal. In other words, it’s secret. They seem to think that you know who killed this Jimenez guy, maybe even saw him killed.”
    She stood with her back to me, still staring out the window. “When I was in my last year at the Peabody Institute,” she began, “I started having this suffocated feeling. I never had control over my own life. I started performing professionally at eight. A violin prodigy, they called me. I played Paganini at ten. There’s something about my fingers and my ear that’s different from most people. They measured me once. A neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins saw me play, and asked me if he could wire me to some machines. It seems my reaction time is about half of what’s considered normal. I can move my fingers faster than other