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There's something I've been thinking about since this morning. Something Jack said.

If she chooses you, have enough respect for her to believe she knows what she's choosing.

Maddy can't choose what she doesn't know.

"You asked me about cooking the other night."

Her eyes lift to mine.

"You said when you're ready."

"I remember."

"You don't have to tell me anything tonight."

"I know."

She doesn't ask another question. She waits.

So I tell her.

“My mother’s name was Véronique.” Just saying her name brings a small smile. "She could walk into a kitchen with almost nothing and put something on the table people remembered."

Maddy smiles.

"She sounds wonderful."

"She was." I look down at our hands. "I had good teachers. Her father was a chef too. René Villefond."

Something flickers across Maddy's face.

"René Villefond."

"Yeah."

"I know that name." Maddy frowns slightly. "That name sounds so familiar."

"It does?"

"I've heard it somewhere." She thinks for a second, then shakes her head. "It's going to drive me crazy now."

"You'll figure it out."

My grandfather spent most of his life avoiding attention outside a kitchen. Somehow he still became the kind of chef other chefs talked about.

I never cared much about that part. To me, he was the man who taught my mother how to make a sauce without measuring anything and told me that if I couldn't tell when onions were ready by smell, I had no business touching the pan.

"He taught my mom," I say. "She taught me."

Maddy settles back in her chair. I turn my water glass slowly between my hands.

“Leaving culinary school wasn’t something I planned.”

Maddy’s fingers tighten gently around mine.

“You wanted to finish.”

“Yeah.”