Staas’ memories were accompanied by a subtle soundtrack of Lady’s pleasant buzzing and the faint pounding of the blizzard outside, and an occasional creak when one of the two shifted on the couch. Rolling his mostly-empty cup of tea around in his hands, Ira listened intently, interrupting the other man’s fond recital only with small but deeply endeared smiles.
Family dynamics of all kinds fascinated him, but he made it a point to ask about mothers in particular. It made him think of his own Ima, and (along with genuine interest in others, of course) that was his intention -- even if missing her was always accompanied by a little bit of hurt. Far worse would be to forget his mother, which was all too easy since she’d died quite a while ago. Seventeen years.
And that was when Staas hit him with how exactly his mother had died, like a bucket of ice water, the chill crawling straight into his gut. He couldn’t even imagine. There was slight catch for the both of them, before Staas continued and Ira starting biting the crap out of his thumbnail in silent, incensed empathy. Staas stopped for another breath, Ira tapping his thumb against the edge his teeth.
He shook his head and pulled his hand away from his mouth. “That fucking sucks. I’m sorry. It just—yeah.” He shook his head again, brow furrowed. “A shtuken nisht in hartz,” he murmured with a tap on his chest, as his grandmother used to do after sharing or hearing of a tragic account. But then Staas gave a shrug of resignation, one that Ira could understand; it was the healthy thing to do, moving on. It was still a fucking shame, though, and he said so.
There was a moment of unreasonable guilt about making Staas talk through that again, when (cold!) toes started nudging his leg. “Ira was so immersed in Staas’ past that the question caught him off guard, not that it terribly showed. “Wh—“
A wry laugh. “I don’t have any deep dark secrets,” he drawled, swatting Staas’ foot off of the couch. “I’m deeply, darkly, secretly boring like that.”