Chapter 24: The Lunch on the Counter

I came downstairs in my robe, one hand on the banister, and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

Cora stood at the island in her new work shirt with her hair in a clip.

Two brown paper bags sat on the counter in front of her, and she was folding the top of the second one down in neat, hard creases.

"You're up early," I said.

"I start at seven. The bakery doesn't open itself."

She had found a job at a gluten-free bakery across town, and she had walked into it on her own with a résumé she had written herself.

"Is one of those for you?"

"One's for me." She slid the other across the island. "That one's for you."

I looked at the bag.

On the front, in black marker, she had written MOM.

"I'm going to a firm," I said. "There's a cafeteria. There's a kitchen with a refrigerator and a stranger's yogurt."

"You forget to eat when you're working. You forget on purpose." She wiped her hands on her apron. "I've watched you do it for two months."

"I thought you hadn't noticed."

"I notice everything. I told you."

In this kitchen, months ago, I had dropped a lunch back into the bin and closed the lid.

I did not say so.

"Dad called last night," Cora said, buttering nothing, just moving the knife around. "Six o'clock exactly. Four minutes. He didn't ask for anything."

"How did it feel?"

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