Page 13

He won't let me photograph him

Mom:

Oh baby. You're in trouble.

Yeah. I really am.

CHAPTER FOUR

DECK

She shows up at seven in the morning with a paper bag, two coffees from Maggie's, and the flannel.

"You already returned that," I say from the porch.

"You gave it back." She holds it up. "It was folded on the passenger seat of my car when I got in Saturday. With an apple on top of it."

I did do that. While she was shooting the orchard, I put the flannel in her car because she left the windows cracked. The apple was impulse. Winesap. Good one.

"Forgot it was there," I say.

"You forgot a flannel in my car."

"Must have."

She grins. Climbs the porch steps, sets one coffee on the railing in front of me, sits in the other chair. My mother's wicker. The one nobody's sat in for five years until this woman decided it was hers.

"What's in the bag?" I ask.

"Breakfast. I made empanadas this morning at the inn. Carol let me use the kitchen." She opens the bag. The smell fills the porch. Beef, onions, cumin, something with heat. "My mom's recipe. Well, her version of it. She learned it from a Venezuelan woman who lived two floors down when I was little."

She hands me one. Still warm, wrapped in parchment. Golden crust, crimped edges, heavy in my palm.

One bite and my brain goes quiet.

The filling is seasoned past what most people would attempt. Cumin, oregano, garlic, peppers I can't quite name. The beef is tender. The crust shatters and then gives. She made this at a hotel kitchen at six in the morning, and it's better than anything I've eaten that I didn't cook myself.

"Good?" she asks, watching me.

"It's fine."

"You ate half of it in one bite."

"I'm hungry."

She laughs. That full laugh, the one that carries. Curls shaking around her face, rings catching the early light. She's wearing jeans again, a cream sweater that falls off one shoulder, those boots from Hilda's. Camera bag at her feet. My flannel draped across her lap.

I eat the second empanada without commenting on it, because if I say what I'm thinking, which is that this woman cooks with the same instinct my mother had, I'll be saying something I can't walk back.

"So," she says, brushing crumbs from her fingers. "What's the plan today?"

"Fence repair on the north line. Check the cattle. Haul the last of the late squash."

"Can I follow you?"

"You'll slow me down."

"I'll keep up."