Now I make it without thinking. Flour, water, salt, oil. Knead until it stops fighting back. Let it rest while I prep everything else.
The cabin smells like woodsmoke and roasting vegetables. Sausages sizzle in the pan beside them, fat rendering out and pooling golden. The sound is rhythmic, comforting, underscored by the occasional pop and hiss when juice hits the hot metal.
Small footsteps patter across the floor behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see sticky hands reaching up toward the counter, dark curls wild around a face smudged with something that might be jam or dirt or both. There's a smear of something orange on one cheek.
"Not yet," I say, turning back to the dough. "Almost dinner."
A dissatisfied sound. The kind that teeters on the edge of protest but hasn't quite committed yet. More pattering, this time toward the main room where Jason's been splitting kindling for the evening fire.
I divide the dough into six pieces, rolling each into a ball before flattening them one by one with the rolling pin Jason made from a piece of birch last spring. The wood is smooth under my hands, worn already from use. The flatbreads aren't perfectly round, but they'll taste good, and that's what matters.
The peppers have taken on that perfect char I'm looking for. I turn them with the wooden spatula, the one with the handle slightly scorched from the time I left it too close to the flame. The onions are translucent and sweet-smelling, beginning to caramelize at the edges. I add a pinch of salt, a crack of black pepper, and give everything a stir.
The door opens, letting in a gust of cold air that makes the fire flicker and sends a draft across my ankles. Jason steps inside, arms full of split wood, snow dusting his shoulders and hair. His breath mists in the sudden warmth of the cabin. He kicks the door shut behind him with his boot—a move I've watched him make a thousand times now, efficient and automatic—and carries the wood to the stone hearth, stacking it neatly beside the fire.
"Cold out there," he says, brushing snow from his sleeves. His cheeks are ruddy from the wind, his beard flecked with ice crystals that are already starting to melt.
"It's February."
"Smart ass." But there's warmth in his voice, that dry amusement I know as well as my own heartbeat now. He shrugs out of his heavy coat, hanging it on the hook by the door, and I catch the familiar scent of pine and cold air andhim.
He crosses to the sink to wash his hands, and I feel him pass behind me, close enough that his chest brushes my shoulder,deliberate in that way he still is. Always touching. Always aware of where I am in a room.
The water runs, steam rising as he scrubs wood dust and bark from his palms. I hear the rough rasp of his hands working together, thorough and methodical.
Small feet scamper toward him. He glances down, water still dripping from his hands, and without missing a beat, he scoops up Gianna with one damp hand, settling the small weight easily on his hip while he dries his other hand on a towel.
"Hungry?" he asks, tilting his head to look down into that small, upturned face.
A solemn nod. Sticky fingers reach for his beard, tangling in the dark hair.
"Yeah, me too." He presses a kiss to the top of that wild-haired head, then looks at me over it. His eyes are soft in the way they only get when he's looking at the two of us. "What can I do?"
"Flatbreads need to go on." I nod toward the cast iron griddle heating on the back burner. "And the sausages are almost done."
He sets our daughter down gently—"Go play, baby"—and the small body toddles off toward the basket of wooden blocks Jason carved over the course of last winter. Each one is different: a bear, a tree, a fish, a star. I watch for a moment as small hands pull out the bear, turning it over with intense concentration.
Jason moves to the stove, and we work in tandem now, the way we've learned to over years of shared space and shared meals and shared everything. He flips the sausages with easy competence, the motion so familiar I could map it with my eyes closed.
I slide the first flatbread on, watching it settle against the black iron. It puffs almost immediately, air pockets forming and rising, and the smell shifts—raw dough giving way to something toasted and warm and alive. I press down gently with the spatula, feeling the resistance, and watch bubbles form and brown.
"You put garlic in this batch?" Jason asks, leaning over to inspect the vegetables. His shoulder presses against mine, solid and warm.
"Obviously."
"Good." He stirs them, scraping up the browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. The spatula makes a satisfying scraping sound against cast iron. "These are perfect."
"I know."
He snorts. Hooks an arm around my waist as I reach past him for the spatula, pulling me against his side for just a moment. His lips brush my temple and I feel the scratch of his beard, the warmth of his breath.
"Show off," he murmurs against my hair.
"Learned from the best."
I feel his smile rather than see it, the way his mouth curves against my skin. Then he releases me and goes back to the sausages, and I flip the flatbread, watching it brown and blister on the other side. The underside is perfect—golden with dark spots where the dough made direct contact with the iron.
Behind us, small footsteps again. Then a frustrated sound, the precursor to a meltdown, the particular pitch that means tiredor hungry or both. The wooden bear hits the floor with a clatter, followed by a small, outraged cry.
