—
Sean doesn't come backuntil late afternoon. By then, I've unpacked, explored every corner of the small apartment three times, and worked myself into a state of nervous energy. I need to do something. Be useful. Be... something other than a burden he's protecting. An idea forms as I pace the apartment for a fourth time while Flynn is checking on things outside.
I'll make dinner.
How hard can it be? I've watched our cook in Boston dozens of times. People do this every day. Surely I can manage something simple.
I go to the kitchen and start opening cabinets. There's not much—some pasta, canned tomatoes, garlic, onions. Okay. Pasta with sauce. I can do that.
I find a pot and fill it with water, set it on the stove. While it's heating—or is it boiling? How do you tell?—I start on the sauce. I remember the cook chopping onions, so I grab one and a knife.
The knife is sharp, and the onion is harder to cut than I expected. It rolls away from me, and I chase it around the cutting board, finally managing to hack it into uneven chunks. My eyes are streaming from the onion fumes, and I'm pretty sure I'm doing this wrong.
The garlic is even worse. I can't figure out how to peel it, and by the time I do, my fingers smell terrible, and the cloves are crushed into a paste.
I dump everything into a pan with some olive oil and turn on the heat. How hot? I have no idea. I turn the dial to medium and hope for the best.
The water on the other burner is making noise now. Is that boiling? I think that's boiling. I dump the pasta in and stir it with a wooden spoon.
The onions and garlic are sizzling loudly. Maybe too loudly? I turn the heat down a little and add the canned tomatoes, splashing red sauce across the stovetop in the process.
This is fine. I'm fine.
I try to remember what else the cook added. Herbs? I find a bottle labeled "Italian Seasoning" and shake a generous amount into the sauce. Then some salt. Then more salt because the first amount didn't seem like enough.
The pasta is... doing something. It's all stuck together in a clump. I try to separate it with the spoon, but it's not cooperating.
Smoke starts rising from the saucepan.
"No, no, no," I mutter, stirring frantically. The bottom is burning. I can smell it. How is it burning? I just started!
I turn off the heat and move the pan, but the damage is done. The sauce is dark at the edges and smells acrid.
The pasta water is boiling over now, hissing as it hits the hot burner. I grab the pot to move it and immediately burn my hand on the handle.
"Ow!" I drop it back on the stove and suck on my burned fingers.
This is a disaster.
I try to salvage it. I drain the pasta—half of it clumps in the strainer, the rest tries to escape down the drain. I scrape the least-burned parts of the sauce into a bowl and dump the pasta on top, mixing it together.
It looks... awful. Brown and clumpy and nothing like what I was trying to make.
I stand there staring at it, at the sauce-splattered stove, at the pile of dishes in the sink, and I want to cry.
I'm useless. I can't even make pasta.
What kind of wife am I? I can't cook, can't clean, don't know how to do anything useful. All I know how to do is play piano and read books and look pretty at parties—except I can't even do that right, because people keep trying to kill me.
I hear the door open, and my stomach drops.No. Not now.
"Maeve?" Sean's voice carries from the entryway.
I don't answer. I'm staring at the ruined dinner, my burned hand throbbing, tears burning behind my eyes.
Footsteps approach the kitchen, and then Sean is at the edge of the counter. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, but I don't look at him. I can't.
"What happened?" His voice is carefully neutral.
