Chapter 24: Mrs. Winslow

Ansel cooked.

It was the first dinner in the house since my mother died, and he stood at her stove in his shirtsleeves with a dish towel over his shoulder.

"It's cod," he said. "It's a Bergen recipe. It has a lot of butter."

"Is that the secret?" Ruth asked.

"That's all of it."

"Then I approve of Norway."

She sat at the head of the kitchen table with the cat on her lap.

Judge had chosen Ansel within the first hour.

He now sat on the back of Ansel's chair whenever Ansel stood, which was inconvenient for everyone but the cat.

I laid out the plates, the good ones with the blue rim that my mother kept for birthdays.

I didn't wait for a birthday.

The front door stood unlocked.

I had gone to turn the new key at six, and Ruth had said, "Leave it, dear. Let's see how it feels."

It felt strange.

For four months I had locked every door in my own house and lain awake listening for a key that was not mine.

Now the latch was off, and the evening air came up the hall from the street, smelling of rain and someone's wood fire.

"Anybody could walk in," I said.

"Anybody who knocks," said Ansel, "will be asked who they are first."

"By whom?"

"By me. I'll be at the door."

"And if it's Hugh?"

"Then I'll ask him to leave a note."

Ruth snorted into her wineglass.

He put the fish on the table, the potatoes, a dish of green beans he'd burned slightly at one end.

We sat.

We ate with our elbows on the table, which my mother would not have allowed on a weekday.

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