“I’m not hoarding?—”
“You’re hoarding. You make these incredible things and then only Luke gets to eat them. Meanwhile the Shack is struggling and you’re over here like ‘oh, I couldn’t possibly help, the menu is sacred.’”
“That’s not?—”
“It’s a little bit what’s happening.”
Meg wanted to argue. She couldn’t.
“What if it doesn’t work?” she said instead. “What if people don’t want variations? What if they just want Margo?”
“Then at least we tried. At least we did something instead of watching the grilled cheese empire crumble.”
“That’s also dramatic.”
“I’m consistently dramatic, at least. It’s my brand.”
Bea wandered in around four, sniffing the air appreciatively.
“Something smells amazing. Is Meg cooking?”
“Meg is saving the Shack,” Anna announced.
“That’s a lot of pressure.”
“We’re experimenting,” Meg said. “Menu additions. Maybe.”
“The pesto grilled cheese?” Bea’s face lit up. “Please tell me you’re doing the pesto grilled cheese. Like, every time I eat your pesto, I think ‘this should be on bread with cheese.’ It’s so obvious.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did! You said the Shack menu was sacred!”
“I don’t sound like that.”
“You sound exactly like that,” Anna and Bea said in unison.
Meg looked between them—her sister and her niece, both grinning, both clearly delighted by this turn of events. The kitchen was warm, fragrant with soup and butter and the memory of onions. Through the window, late afternoon light slanted across the counter.
“Meg.” Anna looked at her with something like exasperation, something like love. “Who do you think taught you to cook in the first place? And why do you think she taught you?”
The question landed somewhere soft.
Margo, standing behind her at the stove when she was twelve. Margo, guiding her hands through the first pesto, the first soup, the first time something she’d made actually tasted right.
Meg didn’t answer. But she tucked the thought away for later.
They packed up — soup in containers, butter in jars, the kitchen warm with the smell of possibility. Bea claimed a spoonful of honey butter as payment for her input. Anna stole a taste of soup and declared it “exactly what the Shack needs, no notes.”
“There are definitely notes,” Meg said. “It needs more acid.”
“See? Notes. You’ll figure it out.”
Anna grabbed her bag. “This was fun. We should do it again sometime.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not a no!”
