There’s a long silence. Emma watches us, an enthralled audience of one.
“Fine.” The word is a concession, heavy with reluctant surrender. He sounds exhausted. “You’re right. I just…Ireallyneed this to work, Annie.”
“I know.” And I do. The need is etched into the lines around his eyes, the tense set of his shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.We’regoing to be okay. But you have to let me do it my way.”
He gives a single, sharp nod. Then he retreats to the armchair, collects his stack of papers and red pen, and pointedly looks down, a man physically granting space while mentally holding his breath.
I turn to Emma. She’s grinning at me with unabashed hero-worship.
“So,” I say, sitting down on the couch next to her. “What should we do first?”
She taps her chin theatrically. “Breakfast!” she announces. “I’m starving. My tummy is making the grumblies.”
I bite back a smile. “Breakfast it is, then. Shall we?”
She giggles and slides off the couch, and I follow her into the kitchen. The morning sunlight is coming through the window above the sink, making everything look warm and golden, and for a second I let myself feel optimistic about this.I can do this.It’s just breakfast. People make breakfast every day.
“What do you normally have?” I ask, opening one of the cabinets to get a sense of where things are.
“Scrambled eggs and toast,” Emma says, hopping up to sit on one of the kitchen chairs, swinging her legs. “And Dad always makes me eat a fruit, too. Like a banana or strawberries or cantaloupe even though I hate cantaloupe.”
I lean in conspiratorially, lowering my voice. “I hate cantaloupe too.”
Her eyes go wide. “Really?”
“Really. It’s like…wet and mushy and it doesn’t taste like anything.”
“Yes!” Emma practically shouts, delighted that someone finally gets it. “And it’s the same color as when you get a bad bruise, you know? Like orange and green at the same time?”
“Exactly! And people always put it in fruit salad like it belongs there, but it doesn’t. It ruins all the other fruit.”
“It makes the other fruit taste like cantaloupe!” Emma’s nodding vigorously now. “That’s what I always tell Dad but he says I’m being dramatic.”
“You’re not being dramatic! It’s a culinary crime.”
She dissolves into giggles at that, and suddenly we’re co-conspirators in cantaloupe hatred. It’s a start. I open the fridge to survey what we’re working with. It’s organized, of course it is, with everything lined up neatly. There’s a gallon of milk—whole milk, with the red cap—a carton of orange juice, a stick of butter on a little ceramic dish, some Tupperware containers that probably have leftovers from his parents’ restaurant.
I grab the carton of eggs from the top shelf and a container of strawberries that look fresh, then set them on the counter. The bread is in a wooden bread box on the counter—white bread, the squishy kind that Emma probably likes—and I pull out four slices.
Emma’s chattering away about something that happened at preschool last week, something involving a boy named Tyler and a disagreement over who got to be the dinosaur during playtime,and I’m nodding along even though I’m only half-listening because I’m trying to figure out the kitchen logistics.
“I’m gonna go get my Ariel coloring book and some crayons,” Emma announces suddenly, sliding off her chair. “Be right back!”
“Okay,” I say, watching her run off down the hallway, her nightgown billowing behind her.
The second she’s gone, I stare down at the carton of eggs like they might provide instructions themselves.
I have never made scrambled eggs before. Not once in my entire life.
I’ve been living off ramen noodles and bananas and the occasional bagel from Essa Bagel down the street, and when I’m feeling fancy—or when Cori or Marcus drag me out—we go to Zen Palate for cheap vegetarian food or grab dollar slices from 2 Bros Pizza. That’s basically been my entire diet since I got to New York, which is probably why my budget has dwindled to almost nothing so quickly. Turns out eating out every day adds up fast, even when you’re eating the cheapest possible options.
But I’ve never actually cooked anything.
I mean, I’ve watched Eileen make scrambled eggs. I think. Maybe? She definitely made breakfast when I was growing up, and eggs were involved, and there was a pan and a stove and…stirring? That’s a thing that happens, right?
The stove before me, with its array of cryptic knobs, might as well be the control panel of a 747.
Have I ever used a stove? Like, actually used one? We had a state-of-the-art kitchen in the house in California but I was never allowed in it when the chef was cooking, and if Eileen was cooking, I sat at the table and never really paid much attention. At Stanford I lived in the dorms where we mainly ate in the cafeteria, and now here in New York the kitchen in my apartment is so small that usually only one person can be inthere at a time, and that person is usually Marcus making his weird experimental meals that never turn out the way he plans.
