by Anna Martin
I was sure that among them was her old recipe book.
For most of my childhood, I’d seen Mama make things from one book she’d started writing in when she was a teenager. It had traveled with her through her life, and she’d been adding to it up until she died.
I’d never consciously collected books; they just seemed to gravitate to me. After working in a bookshop for a few years, the habit of picking up a few a week had stuck with me, even when I left that job. Not just novels; I often read history books, biographies, collections of short stories. So when I was decorating our yellow house, putting in a bookshelf made sense. Even if I hadn’t brought any of my books with me.
That proved to be a good idea. The top two shelves were almost full of Mama’s old books. I sat down in front of the shelf and ran my fingers along the spines.
There was a lot of romance: Jilly Cooper, Nora Roberts, Harlequin titles I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet.
Nestled among them was her leather-bound recipe book.
I smiled as I pulled it from the shelf, carefully opening it and setting it on my knees. Old paper had a specific sort of smell to it, warm and musty at the same time, and something tugged at my heart as I flicked through the pages.
My mama’s handwriting was both neat and elegant. She gave measurements in cups and spoonfuls in smooth ink on rough paper. When I held the spine of the book between my palms, the pages fell open at one of the most frequently used recipes.
Brownies.
Of course. Mama made them at least once a week when Jennifer and I were kids.
We definitely had the ingredients to make them. I took the book back to the kitchen and set it on the counter, where it remained open on the right page without any need to weigh it down.
I hadn’t made this particular recipe before and was determined to follow it to the letter to make sure I came out with the same result my mama had. It was therapeutic, humming to myself as I made a mess of the kitchen, mixing up the batter, then pouring the gloopy liquid into a pan.
When it was in the oven baking, I cleaned up and justified to myself why I hadn’t told Will I’d met up with Ben. Again. He was sick—I didn’t want to upset him. He wasn’t feeling well, so he was probably feeling crappy about himself and might take what was totally innocent the wrong way.
The timer beeped, pulling me out of my thoughts. I took the pan from the oven and, unable to wait, pulled off a piece of crust.
For one moment, my expectations hovered, then shattered. It tasted nothing like my Mama’s brownies. It was decidedly average. Just another chocolate brownie.
Feeling like I wanted to cry, I went to our room and curled up in the bed next to Will. After a few moments, he rolled over and wrapped his arms around me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking my hand and threading our fingers together.
“Nothing.” I tried to shrug him off but he held on tight.
“Jesse.”
“I don’t like seeing you sick, is all.” That confession cost me a lot.
“Oh, baby.”
He pulled me closer. I didn’t want to put any extra pressure on his chest since his breathing was already bad. He couldn’t lay flat because of the coughing. I had him propped up on a whole pile of pillows to try and keep his lungs clear.
“It’s just an infection, Jess. I’m okay.”
“I know that,” I said, irrationally annoyed with him. “Not liking it when you’re sick doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“No. It makes you an exceptionally amazing one.”
I couldn’t tell him about the brownies. Now that it was all done, I felt stupid.
Will shuffled down on the bed and kissed my cheek.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, a barely there whisper against my neck. I smiled and tightened my hold on him.
“Yes. Still yes.”
“Good.”
I was losing track of the number of times we’d proposed to each other. Will had started it. He’d asked the first time at New Year’s when we were watching the fireworks. I asked him back on Valentine’s Day, when we’d spent the night at home alone, locked in against the snow-laced rain that was battering the Northwest.
We held on to each other for a few more minutes, until Will started coughing again and needed to lean forward to catch his breath. I rubbed his back for a moment, then went to make him more tea.
Will was not a good patient.
I’d let him have access to his laptop once he got past the splitting headaches that plagued him the first couple of days, after the medicine kicked in. He still wasn’t well, but I knew from past experience he would insist on catching up with his work, no matter what his physical state.
He didn’t need looking after. It was surely the same things driving me to run around after him that were keeping us in the South in the first place, so I could be close to and watch out for my dad and sister. They were doing okay too. My aunt, Mama’s sister, heard Will got sick and brought round some homemade chicken soup and a pie.
I stuck the pie in the fridge and told Will he wasn’t getting any until he’d eaten his soup, much to Aunt Kelly’s amusement and Will’s disappointment.
I promised him grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup, which went some way toward making it up to him.
“You love him very much,” Kelly said as I walked her back to her car.
“Yeah. Is it obvious?”
“In the little ways,” she said, squeezing my hand gently. “Get him to eat that soup. But let him have some pie after.”
She winked at me before driving away.
“I like your Aunt Kelly,” Will called to me as I crossed the house to the kitchen.
“Me too.”
I heard him struggling out of bed and decided not to stop him. He was wearing loose pajama pants and nothing else, and I instinctively brushed my hands over his waist as he passed me.
“Do we have soda?”
“There should be some Cokes in the fridge.”
While I sliced cheese and made the sandwiches, then set them in the skillet to toast, Will leaned against the counter and offered a combination of advice and criticism.
“Don’t let the edges burn.”
“I’ll burn you in a minute,” I muttered.
“Jesse?”
“What?”
“Sorry I’m such a sucky patient.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You are that. I don’t mind.”
He leaned over and kissed my cheek, letting his lips linger for a moment. I smiled and he pressed his lips into my dimple.
“Ben called me,” I said, letting the words loose before I lost the guts it took to say them.
“Oh?” He didn’t sound too bothered.
“Yeah. We went out for a drink.”
I chanced looking over. Will was frowning.
“I was going to tell you about it before,” I said quickly, “then you got home the other night and, well, we got distracted. Then you got sick, and I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” he said carefully.
“I said no at first. He knows there’s no chance we’re going to hook up again. He said he just wanted to hang out. You know, as friends.”
Will smiled and touched my arm. “You can have friends, baby. God. That’s a good thing.”
“You’re not mad?” I asked, turning back to the skillet and flipping the sandwiches. The first side was a crisp golden-brown.
“I wish you’d told me sooner, but I know why you didn’t, and no, I’m not mad.”
“Okay.”
We dropped the subject, and the next time I went out with Ben, I texted Will first to let him know where I was, and that I loved him. He sent me a smiley face and some kisses back.
Going to bars all the time wasn’t my scene, not that there was much in the way to do around here that didn’t involve eating or drinking something. Ben invited me to a movie, then to the basketball courts, then to the mall wher
e there was a great bookshop with a Starbucks inside.
“The coffee’s better in Seattle,” I said with a sigh, after spending five minutes trying to explain to the barista how to make my drink.
“I’m sure it is,” Ben said, clearly humoring me.
“And they know how to make a Grande sugar-free vanilla breve latte.”
“I’m sure it’s delicious.”
“I don’t think she charged me enough,” I whispered, then slurped my drink. Ben laughed.
In the past few weeks, we’d started getting to know each other better. Ben made fun of me a lot, not in a mean way, just messing about. I made fun of him right back when he ordered a black coffee with a completely straight face.
It was nice to hang out with someone whose accent was stronger than mine, who knew what it felt like to sound out of place. Moving up North with an accent like ours was tough.
Ben was polite to a fault and didn’t seem to be much of a rebel, little hangovers from his youth that hadn’t quite gone away. He always dressed a little bit too formal for every occasion; smart jeans and pressed shirts, compared to my cargo shorts and flip-flops.
He wouldn’t let me set him up with anyone on a date, either, not that I knew anyone here other than him. Although Ben kept insisting he wasn’t interested in seeing anyone outside of his Internet hook-ups, I thought it was a front. We all had our coping mechanisms, and I’d come to appreciate how amazingly supportive my dad was, and how lucky I was to have had parents who accepted me. They embraced Will as part of the family too.
“How’s work?” I asked Ben. He was a data analyst, which he enjoyed, but his passion was the little carpentry business he owned and made all the stock for. Quite often, when we met up, his hands would be covered in little nicks and scars. Side effects of the job.
“Not bad. It’s slow at the moment. I don’t care. I finished up a side table last night.”
“Oh?”
Ben pulled his phone from his pocket and flicked through the photos.
“Nice,” I said. It was. I’d been thinking about possibly buying some pieces from Ben for the house, not that we really needed any more furniture. I thought Will’s mom might like something from him for Christmas. Handmade stuff was expensive, though, so I was keeping quiet until I knew for sure.
“How about you? Has Serena sent you any more work?”
“Not yet.”
“Ah, that explains why you can get out in the middle of the day for lazy coffee breaks,” he said with a grin.
“Fuck off,” I told him without venom.
“Is Will better yet?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. He shouldn’t be back at work, but he doesn’t listen to me. I know he’s got an important job, and it just got even more important, but he’s not the last person in the world. He doesn’t need to go to work when he’s sick.”
“Does he do that a lot?”
“He doesn’t get sick very often. But yeah, he’s terrible at just lying down and getting better. He broke his leg once….”
I trailed off, not really sure I wanted to discuss the accident and its aftermath. But Ben had such an open expression, inviting me to keep talking.
“We were driving back from snowboarding up in Canada, and we hit some ice. The car was totaled, and we both broke bones. Will smashed up his leg pretty bad, and I broke some ribs. After that, he worked from home for weeks until he was well enough to go into the office.”
“That sounds horrible.”
It had been. For those terrible few weeks, our relationship hung by a thread, neither of us knowing if we’d recover from the psychological trauma the accident had caused. Bones healed a lot better than minds.
There was no way I could tell Ben that. I shrugged it off.
“We’re both fine now.”
“Good. I got thrown from a horse once,” he offered. “Stupid fucking rodeo. We weren’t even doing anything. The horse just spooked at something and threw me.”
“Break anything?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said with a laugh. “Yeah. Wrist, collarbone, hip. I landed sideways on a railing.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” He laughed again. “I was only sixteen, though, so I healed up pretty good. My biggest problem was losing my jerking-off hand.”
I snorted. “I can imagine.”
“It was good in a way. I’m ambidextrous these days.”
“You know what they say about silver linings.”
He grinned and sipped his coffee. With his hand held up at that angle, I could see the criss-crossing of scars over his wrist—probably the result of his accident.
I guessed Ben noticed my interest in his carpentry. A few days later, he invited me to his place to see it in person. I’d already told Will about it, about how I was thinking of buying a few pieces too. When we were lying in bed together, late at night, he told me to go and have a nice time.
We kissed for a while, slow and easy, and I fell asleep with his arm around my waist.
Chapter 19
“Is it done yet?” Jennifer asked, poking me in the ribs as I stirred a big pot of chili. “Is it done yet, Jesse? Is it done?”
“Jesus, girl,” I said. “You’re annoying. Get that corn bread out of the oven and set the table. It’s nearly there.”
She gave me a quick grin and kissed me on the cheek, then got to work. Baby begged around my ankles for scraps, not that she was getting any. Jen was in a good mood; work at her office was picking up, and they’d recently been awarded a local prize for animal protection. It was great publicity for someone so young and recently certified.
Since I found it hard not to give in to the puppy, I abandoned the food for a moment and crouched down to give her a belly rub. Baby gave me licky kisses in return. It was only when I let her go I noticed my shoe just outside the kitchen.
“Jennifer!” I yelled.
“What?” She stuck her head around the door from the dining room.
“Your dog,” I said, pointing to my lone loafer, which was looking distinctly soggy. “Why is it your dog only chews my shoes?”
“Why is it she’s only my dog when she’s in trouble?”
“She’s your dog all the time,” I grouched. “But especially when she’s in trouble. Seriously, though, she never touches Will’s shoes. What is it about mine?”
“Maybe you have nice-tasting feet. You should take it as a compliment.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, and she ducked back into the dining room, snickering to herself. I stuck my tongue out at her retreating back.
Dad and Will were looking over the side of the house where Dad wanted to build a new garage. I’d already walked over the area with him a couple of times, talking plans and how much space he’d need to put a workbench along the back. It was endearing he wanted to involve Will too. I liked that he respected Will’s opinion as much as mine. Plus, Will had done a lot of renovations on his house in Seattle, converting the attic space and putting a door through from our garage to the kitchen so we didn’t have to walk around the house in the rain. That was one of the problems with older houses—they weren’t nearly as convenient.
They came back into the kitchen talking contractors, and Will brushed my ass with his hand as he passed me, a move too subtle for anyone else to notice.
“All right, grub’s up,” I said, turning off the burners on the stove and taking the pot straight to the table so we could serve ourselves.
“Smells good,” Dad said.
Will had made lemonade and stuffed it full of ice and fine slivers of lemon, the perfect, icy complement to the heat of the chili. Dinners like this had become common over the past few months, something I’d grown to treasure. It was frequently a messy sort of affair, food prepared by one inexpert hand or another. That didn’t matter at all.
When we all sat down together to eat, things worked a little differently compared to how they were before. Mama didn’t preside over the table. We all chipped in, talking over each other, me te
asing my sister. She didn’t mind, not really. I’d done it all her life. It was how we were these days, so much better than the almost-silent meals we’d shared in the weeks after Mama passed.
I was starting to feel like my family was re-forming after the shock of losing her. With having one woman leading the family, when she was gone, we all floundered for a time, wondering what the structure would be in the future now that there wasn’t one person holding us all together. I had thought that role would fall on me, as the oldest child, but the funniest thing had happened.
We’d all stepped up. In different ways, of course. I couldn’t discount my own role or Will’s, but we were becoming interdependent in a way we hadn’t been before. It was nice. It took the pressure off and lessened the expectations, allowing us all to find a new place in the family.
Having Will around while it took shape over a number of months was the biggest relief. I knew my dad liked him—more than that, respected him—and his place in the family was almost as cemented as mine.
When we got home, Will pulled me onto the couch and sat twisted around. Then he grabbed hold of my hands.
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
“Okay,” I said slowly and shifted until I was comfortable, leaning with my shoulder against the thick cushion. “Go on.”
“Actually, I need to apologize for something. It’s Matthew.”
I tried not to make a face at the sound of the name. I hadn’t brought him up again, not wanting to fuel the fire of that argument. I knew they were still working on overlapping projects. Every now and then I’d see his name on a report Will was reading.
“He,” Will said, then took a deep breath. “I think I see where you were coming from.”
“Did he hit on you again?” I asked.
“No, not really. It’s just, I don’t know. He’s been a bit more distant since that dinner, and now he’s doing the same sort of thing with another guy in the office. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I was just relieved I didn’t have to deal with him anymore. He was at the coffee machine yesterday with this other guy I work with and—fuck—I don’t know. I just… I see it now.”
