Poppy seemed to genuinely consider the pros and cons of allowing Nina to intervene before nodding slowly. ‘’Kay.’
Nina picked up the wooden spoon from the side of the stove and stirred the marinara, but she was very aware of Poppy’s hawkish gaze. ‘This smells really good,’ she offered. ‘What did you put in here?’
‘’Matoes and … stuff.’
‘You don’t remember what we put in?’ This came from Sierra, who walked to them and passed Nina the glass of wine before taking a seat on the chair Poppy was still standing on.
Poppy roped her arms around her aunt’s neck. ‘I forgot.’
‘Onion, garlic, oregano, basil, and salt and pepper.’
Nina smiled as Poppy repeated the list of ingredients as if Nina hadn’t just heard Sierra rattle them off herself, and the moment she was done, Nina said, ‘Wow, that’s a lot to remember.’
‘Yeah. We use a book.’
‘A recipe book of my mom’s,’ Sierra clarified. ‘She handwrote the recipes she liked her entire life, so every now and then we try to do one of the recipe books justice.’
Nina nodded, but she wondered what that must have been like, growing up with a sibling and both parents.Stableparents. Parents who ran a successful ranch and handwrote recipes and tucked you in at night. To Nina, the Hunts’ lives may as well have been a movie. ‘How many recipe books are there?’
‘Seven.’
‘Seven?’
‘Yeah, but her recipes always end up stressing me out. Mom was really disorganized,’ she explained, ‘so her only rule was that she started a new recipe on a new page.’ Sierra stretched to reach a notebook that sat on the kitchen table. She passed it to Nina.
Nina put the spoon down and took the notebook. She opened it randomly in the middle and found herself smiling as she read both pages. The first, neat handwriting, read:Mav’s Favourite Chocolate Cake.The second page’s title was:Cream of Artichoke Soup. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘I keep telling myself to scan all the pages onto my computer so that I can reorganize and sort them, maybe print them and have them book-bound in some coherent categories, so I don’t have to flip through forty pages of random recipes to find the one I need.’
Nina couldn’t imagine having something so special and choosing to digitize it, even if it was for convenience. ‘Don’t do that.’ She passed Sierra the book back. ‘Or do it to preserve the recipes, maybe have them copied for when Poppy leaves home one day. But those shouldn’t be digitized.’
Sierra smiled. ‘Yeah. It’s funny how many of our memories are linked so closely to a person’s physical things. Every time I take one out, I hear my mom’s voice in my head, saying “Now where on earth did I write that recipe down?”’
Nina chuckled, but she couldn’t help but think that memories of her own mother hid in darker places. In a stranger’s cigarette smoke. In old bars that had that stale booze smell. In instant ramen noodles and boxes of Cheerios, neither of which she could stomach anymore.
‘Was your mom a cook?’
Nina laughed outright at that. ‘No. I don’t think I ever saw my mom cook anything. She …’ Nina thought about how to explain, while being sensitive to Poppy’s young ears. ‘She wasn’t like your mom.’
She didn’t realize how bitter she was and how it bled into her tone until Poppy looked up at her, and in a voice so blunt, so accepting, said, ‘I don’t like my mom too.’
Nina didn’t know what to say to that. She was so astounded by the child’s astuteness, so shocked at the transparency, that for a long moment, she simply stared.
Poppy kept right on talking. ‘She doesn’t know what I like to eat. And she always makes my dad sad.’ Poppy’s lower lip trembled.
Oh, God. She’d made Maverick’s child cry in her first hour. Nina didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know Poppy’s story, so couldn’t tell her that some women shouldn’t be mothers, or that she was better off without a mother like that in her life. The only truth she absolutely knew was, ‘But you don’t need your mom because you got the best dad in the world.’
Poppy seemed to like that. Her eyes brightened immediately. ‘Yeah!’
And perhaps wanting to push them all back to their previous happy chatter, Sierra roped her arms around Poppy’s waist and pulled her onto her lap. ‘What about the best aunty in the world?’ she asked and started to tickle Poppy.
Poppy squealed, clearly used to the game. ‘You’re the best, Sisi! You’re the best, Sisi!’
Sierra stopped tickling her as soon as she got what she wanted. But she finished with: ‘Damn right, I am.’
Maverick heard the entire conversation. He had paused around the corner when he’d heard Nina talk about her mother, and not because he didn’t want to interrupt, but because he wanted to know more about her.
Only, he hadn’t expected the conversation to turn back on him quite so quickly.
