He watches her bring the cup to her peach lips and wonders whether she would fold him into a crane if he were made of paper.
‘It looks like it’s wearing the sun on its head,’ she says.
‘It’ll be loud and unruly and it might live 70 years, it’s out of the question.’
She pouts and he feels a hot bubbling under his skin.
‘Stop that,’ you look like a child is what he does not say, because the bubbling is not only anger and it gets stronger the more she looks at him like that.
‘All right, all right,’ he says, ‘I’ll buy you the damned bird, but don’t come running to me when it keeps you awake all night.’
‘Oh, I might,’ she says.