They talked while they cooked, but not about tomorrow, about everything else, about the whole year.
“Oh my gosh, do you remember the karaoke?” Claire said, laughing. “At Hank’s? I swear, Nina, you almost didn’t get out of the car.”
“I almost didn’t get out of the car for many of them,” Nina said. “That was kind of my thing back then.”
“Yeah, your thing was getting out of the car anyway,” Harper said. “That was the brave part. Not the adventure at first. It was the car door.”
Nina stirred the mole. The chocolate was now going in, two tablets, dark and grainy, dissolving into the sauce. This time, Nina’s hands weren’t shaking as they had been at Señora Morales’s house. Now she stirred with a steady rhythm of a woman who had made this recipe at least five times.
“Oh, and the polar plunge,” Nina said. “Claire, you screamed so loud a jogger stopped to make sure nobody was drowning.”
“Well, that water was thirty-seven degrees. I think screaming was completely appropriate.”
“And the matching bathing suits,” Harper said. “Navy with polka dots. I can’t believe you bought us matching bathing suits, Claire.”
“I told you they were on sale. It was a really good sale.”
“They were coordinated. You coordinated our polar plunge like we were triplets.”
“Well, someone has to maintain standards around here.”
Harper opened a bottle of wine while the mole simmered. She poured three glasses, and they moved to the kitchen table.
Claire’s phone was open to a folder of the photos from the past eleven months. They scrolled through them together, leaning in, their heads almost touching.
The karaoke stage at Hank’s, blurry and dark, their three shapes in the spotlight.
The polar plunge, taken by the jogger who had stopped to watch, the three of them in polka dots, waist-deep, mouths hanging open in shock.
Nina at Señora Morales’s stove, stirring, tears running down her face.
The tattoo parlor in Savannah, with Wren bent over Harper’s wrist.
The diner outside Hendersonville, three glasses of sweet tea and that big basket of biscuits.
The hotel room in Asheville, Claire on the pullout couch, sketching, while Nina smiled at the ceiling.
Their speed dating name tags, lined up in a row.
The grief retreat, a photo Nina had asked Claire to take of the rocking chairs on the porch.
Hank’s sign, Folly Beach at dawn, their wave tattoos.
Harper’s comedy face, mouth open, finger pointing at the audience.
Clementine the horse, her nose against Nina’s shoulder.
Claire’s painting on an easel, war paint on their faces.
Eleven months, eleven adventures, some of them not a big deal to other people, but very big deals to them. These three women, who had sat on a porch a year ago and admitted the truth, signed a napkin, and then just jumped.
“Who were we?” Harper said, scrolling back to the beginning.
There was a photo of them from the birthday dinner that Claire had taken at the table, with three of them raising their glasses. The difference in that photo and the ones that came after was so visible that it made Claire’s chest clench.
In the birthday photo, they were smiling. In the later photos, they were alive.
There was a real difference.
