She said, “There. That’s better. Can you help me?”
“I’m not a very good cook,” I muttered as I came to stand next to her. “I burn things. Ezra always did the….”
Except he wasn’t Ezra.
I wondered how long that would go on.
I thought it might be forever.
She said, “Strange.”
“What?”
She handed me a peeler and a potato. “How for everything that’s different, some things are always the same. You tried to cook Kelly breakfast once.”
“Just once?” I started to peel the potato in slow, even strokes.
“Notice how I used the word tried. I woke up and thought the house was on fire.”
Jessie snorted but didn’t speak.
“I came downstairs,” Elizabeth continued. “It was barely light out. You were panicking. There was a black mess in a pan on the stove that you said had once been the beginnings of an omelet. There was egg on the ceiling. You had cheese in your hair.”
The potato burst in my hand as I squeezed it too tight.
Elizabeth took the remains from me. “Interesting way to go about it. Good thing it was going to be mashed anyway.”
She handed me another.
I started again.
“Your eyes were wide,” she continued, “and you told me you didn’t know what had happened. Everything had been going well, but then you got distracted by the trees outside the window.” She smiled. “You always did love trees. I think you got that from your mother. She could spend hours out in the woods, just walking around.”
“You knew her.”
She nodded. “Not as well as I would have liked. But yes. I knew her.”
“Did… you tell me this? Before?”
“I did.”
“Oh.” I nearly nicked my hand. I gripped the peeler tighter.
“So there you were, burning the meal you’d woken up early to make. You said that you’d always wanted to bring someone breakfast in bed. You’d never had someone before to do that with, and you were so mad that it didn’t work out.”
“What did I do?”
She bumped her shoulder against mine. “You started over. And that’s how I knew that there would be no one else for Kelly but you. Because even though it was hard and turned out rather terrible, you didn’t give up. You asked for my help, but when I started cracking eggs, you said you wanted to do it. You told me you wanted me as more of a supervisor than to be hands-on.”
“If I had help, it wouldn’t be from me.”
She looked startled before she laughed. “Yes. That’s what you said. So I watched over you, and you started from scratch. It wasn’t perfect, and I believe Kelly found an eggshell or two, but you did it. You get frustrated easily, but you learned patience. Don’t forget that.”
I nodded as she wiped her hands on a dishtowel and sashayed away, Tammy ending and the Shirelles taking over, asking if you’d still love me tomorrow.
I looked out the window.
In the backyard, a large table had been set up, a dark green tablecloth set on top of it. Chris and Gordo and Mark were putting chairs around the table. In the center, weighted down, was a bunch of balloons.