The oven warmed the whole kitchen. Music played from my phone on the counter, some holiday playlist Isa picked and then pretended she didn’t like. The cinnamon broom sat by the sink, making the room smell like spice and sugar and something close to peace.
At one point, she tasted the mashed potatoes, frowned, added more butter, tasted again, and closed her eyes like she had communed with the universe.
“Perfect,” she said.
I watched her.
Barefoot. Hair messy. Face flushed from the oven. My hoodie tied around her waist. Cream sweater sleeves pushed up. Concentrating like this mattered.
Like making something warm in my father’s cold kitchen mattered.
My chest went tight.
“Thank you,” I said.
She glanced over. “For what?”
“This.” I looked around the kitchen, at the mess, at the turkey, at her. “I needed this.”
Her face softened.
Not pity.
Understanding.
“My mom and I used to do stuff like this,” I said before I could talk myself out of it. “Not Thanksgiving like this exactly. We didn’t have money-money, not before Richard decided paying for everything made him less of a bastard. But she’d make a whole meal out of whatever we had. Music on. Flour everywhere. She’d let me help even though I made it worse.”
Isa leaned her hip against the counter.
“She sounds like she loved you right.”
My throat closed.
I looked down at the turkey.
“Yeah,” I said.
The word barely came out.
Isa didn’t rush to fill the silence. She just crossed the kitchen, slid her arms around my waist from behind, and pressed her cheek between my shoulder blades.
“No, I get it,” she said quietly. “It’s good.”
I covered her hands with mine.
For a second, I let myself stand there.
Let myself have it.
Her arms around me.
Food in the oven.
A kitchen that did not feel like Richard’s house anymore.
Then the back door opened.
Laughter spilled in first.
