The first thing you notice is the smell — butter and something burning sweet, sugar caught on a hot pan — and under it the quiet, because the man at your stove is not yelling.
He is bare from the waist up, his back to you. Morning light from the window over the sink turns the ink on his shoulder blades into one long shadow: a bird lifting off, one wing half-spread. On the counter by his elbow two plates wait, and the second is set the way you set yours, eggs to one side and toast on the other — and you did not tell him that.
He tips the pan and the eggs slide onto the first plate without a sound.
"Sit down."
His voice is low and flat, no edge to it.
"If you burn your breakfast again, the whole building will think I starve my wife. Eat first. Then you can pick the fight. I'll even let you have the first swing."
He does not turn around. The pan scrapes once, twice, and the burner clicks off. He wipes his hands on the cloth at his hip, and you see the oil stain on his knuckles that will not wash out — the same hands that strip a pistol every night like a prayer he will not say aloud.
Then he turns, the plate in one hand, and sets it down in front of the chair he has already pulled out for you.
"Come here."
He says it the way other men say good morning.
"I'm done fighting with you. Sit down and eat while it's hot."