Chapter 16: Morning Kitchen

Missy woke at four with her heart going hard and her husband's name in her mouth.

It was the hospital hallway again, the one with the green floor, and the door at the end that never got any closer.

She lay still and counted the ceiling boards.

Someone was breathing against her shoulder. Someone else had a leg thrown across her shins.

She slid out from under all of it, found her robe and went down to the kitchen in the dark.

The light over the stove was already on.

Chan stood at the counter in his boxers, lining up her spice jars by height.

"Don't," Missy said. "I have a system."

"The system is alphabetical."

"The system is where I can reach them."

He put down the cumin and turned around, and his face changed when he saw hers.

"Bad one?"

"The hallway."

She didn't say which hallway, and he didn't ask.

He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat, and he put the kettle on.

Her hands were doing what they did, turning her silver rings round and round her fingers.

Chan sat down across from her and laid his hand over both of hers.

His palm was warm and heavy, and her rings stopped.

"Is that all right?" he asked.

"It's the first thing that's helped all week."

"Then I'll do it all week."

She looked at his thumb resting on her knuckle, and a different kind of heat moved through her.

"You haven't slept either," she said.

"I don't, much. I write in my head."

"What are you writing?"

"A list. Things I'd do for you if you'd let me."

"Chan."

"It's a short list. It's mostly dishes."

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